


Raven

by TheWaffleBat



Series: Crow [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Also plot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Daud you idiot stop getting feelings, Enemies to Lovers, Introspection, M/M, Minor Character Death, Period-Typical Homophobia, Redemption, Royal Spymaster Daud (Dishonored), Sex, but still, mostly in mention, not all dicks in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-22 03:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17052629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWaffleBat/pseuds/TheWaffleBat
Summary: He almost said to put him back in the boat and push him out into the Wrenhaven, and forget he’d ever arrived. It was the least Daud could do, to make up for what he’d done to him, for the burn scar on his jaw that Daud may as well have inflicted himself. If Corvo was going to die from the poison - and given all the shadowed hollows in his body, obvious even under his thick clothes, it looked increasingly likely he would - then at least he deserved to die in peace, away from him.Daud is a tired old man with too much blood on his hands, enough that saving Emily won't save him in return, but maybe helping Corvo is its own reward.





	1. Chapter 1

Corvo was an awful wreckage of a man when he floated into their base.

Daud looked at him through the bars of the cage with an almost uncomfortable lump of pity in his chest. “Poisoned, Tyvian stuff,” Said Rulfio, tilting Corvo’s face into the light and Daud, on reflex, almost asked him not to. “Whoever did it half-arsed it, though. Not enough to kill him.”

Obligingly, Daud peered with cool detachment into Corvo’s eyes. He repressed a shiver - if the Abbey’s teachings were true, and eyes were the windows to the soul, then somewhere between stalking the streets cutting down the nobles who stood between him and his kid and winding up at Daud’s base half-dead from poison, he’d been beaten out of his. Nothing sparked, not even deep in their muddy darkness. No anger, no grief, not even the dull throb that betrayal always left, hollowed out in Daud’s chest where Billie had once sat.

“Corvo,” He called; testing. Nothing.

He’d been a soldier, Daud remembered suddenly, and a damn good one too, or so said all the nobles who wanted to hire Daud and spent most of the meeting nattering. It was an old trick of Serkonos, to box the sense of self away and only bring it out when it was safe again. Keep all the emotions hidden to be sorted through later, locked behind a door that wouldn’t open until the job was done. Or maybe it was just a trick he learned in prison - shutting the world out so completely that he was no longer there to engage with it, to never have to know what was being done to him. Lights on and inside the house, but locked in the wardrobe. A panic room in his own head.

Daud felt another stab of pity. He almost said to put him back in the boat and push him out into the Wrenhaven, and forget he’d ever arrived. It was the least Daud could do, to make up for what he’d done to him, for the burn scar on his jaw that Daud may as well have inflicted himself. If Corvo was going to die from the poison - and given all the shadowed hollows in his body, obvious even under his thick clothes, it looked increasingly likely he would - then at least he deserved to die in peace, away from him.

But the men wouldn’t have exactly agreed, and Daud knew perfectly well why - Tyvian poison was known to induce nausea and headaches; it was not known to cause hallucinations. If Corvo was even vaguely aware of where he was, and he _did_ survive, then it wasn’t out of the question that he knew where to go if he wanted revenge on the person who stripped him of everything he’d held dear.

“Take him to the holding bay,” He told Rulfio, accepting the box of Corvo’s weapons when Thomas handed it to him. “Let me know when he wakes up - I’ll want a talk with him.”

Rulfio, Outsider bless him, didn’t question him, just bowed as he’d always done and, hauling Corvo up and into his arms with alarming ease (he wasn’t going to even _pretend_ to fight back?), Transversed away. He was one of the few who wasn’t put out by Daud’s sudden desperate tiredness of death, and more than willing to put his skills to use as a thief instead of murderer. His knack with locks meant he was better suited to it, anyway.

Thomas, loyally, followed him back up to the office. He didn’t mention Daud’s mercy, or Corvo’s utter passiveness as he was handled. He didn’t even look at the box of Corvo’s tools - mostly consisting of sleep darts, an excellent crossbow, and an expansive collection of bonecharms - swinging from Daud’s hand. He was good like that, and they had a job to do; they’d been hired to clean out a safe, and they needed a plan to get through to the estate. Daud put the box in his desk; he did consider just throwing it to the river krusts and be done with it; hand Corvo over for the reward and ignore the guilt still twinging in his heart, but something that was maybe common sense and could just as easily have been a too-late sympathy, stayed his hand.

Liz popped in at sundown, bowing deeply before standing with her hands clasped behind her back. “Cook is sending a reminder for you to eat today,” She said calmly, ignoring the glare Daud was giving her. “And Rulfio said to tell you that Attano is awake, and is making no attempt to use his Mark to escape. He said it’s creepy as fuck the way he just sits there staring, and that he’d have come to tell you himself it’s just that he doesn’t trust Attano not to hang himself from the cage using a Serkonan knot and the arms of his coat.”

“Can it wait?” Daud asked, even as he started packing up his things to go see him. Of course it couldn’t wait - sooner, rather than later, Corvo would come out of his boxes and out of the cage and come after him. He’d ruined Corvo, completely and utterly; hurt his daughter, took her from him; killed the woman, the one person in the world, he loved. Better he got it out of the way with most of his men still recovering from the Overseers’ invasion, unable to join the fight even if they wanted to, than to trust Corvo's mercy to extend to even them.

Liz shook her head. “He said that Attano was starting to ask after you, and the empress. Something about a deal he wanted to make. Apparently all Corvo’ll say is ‘Emily’ and ‘deal with Daud’. Well,” Said Liz, shuffling her feet as she stood a little straighter under Daud’s gaze, “He assumes it’s your name, sir.”

Daud looked down at the map spread across his desk, the little pieces of crap he’d picked up from here and there and everywhere; bottle caps for his Whalers, corks for the towers, lines of string for the walls of light. They’d roughed out a good plan together, even though it would probably all go to shit the second the job started because the guards didn’t have the good grace to stay in one place. Thomas didn’t need his input.

But, equally, Daud _did not_ want to see Corvo. He’d had enough of killing, true; the empress’ wide, shocked eyes branded against the inside of his mind like the burn scar pulled tight along Corvo’s jaw - but Corvo didn’t know that. Even if he did, what would it change? It had still taken her death to make him like this, made of grief and ruin and tired old bones; aches in his joints when it rained, knees clicking when he stood after too long crouched.

‘ _Old man_ ’ Billie called him once, fondness twisting the insult into affection, and he _was_ old, and he didn’t know when that had happened. He was tired, and he wanted the whole mess with Corvo to go away. He could enjoy the rest of his years finding jobs for his Whalers and using the funds to keep them all alive and safe, never clapping eyes on Corvo’s severe young face again.

“Good,” Said Daud, even though the entire mess was anything _but_ and Thomas’ glance at him said as much. “Go down to dinner, you’re dismissed for the day. Thomas-” Liz disappeared, “-keep working on the plan. You’ll be in charge for the hit.”

Thomas shuffled nervously. “Sir, Attano-”

“I can handle Corvo,” Daud interrupted, not wanting to put up with another speech about his own nasty tendency to put himself in reckless danger whenever he was depressed. Inexplicable grief weighed on him, yes, but he wasn’t going to show throat just because he was a little out of sorts. “I’ll have Rulfio keeping an eye on him and if, _if_ , something happens, I’ll summon you.”

Daud wasn’t going to do that, and they both knew it. Thomas was good; a better man than Daud ever was, ever could be. He didn’t want to risk losing him to Corvo’s vengeance and if Daud’s death went in some way to keep the Whalers going, to pay back some of the immeasurable debts Daud owed him, then it was a small price to pay. He’d always loved a bargain.

Thomas knew all that, so he nodded; bowed deep. “Sir,” He said.

-:-

Rulfio looked up with a wave when Daud Transversed into the holding bay, probably grinning behind his mask, he was that kind of fool. He also, inexplicably, had Corvo’s thick coat hung on the back of his chair and Corvo’s shirt hung on the pipes that still, somehow, fed hot water through the base. “Sir!” He called.

Daud leaned his hip against the table and peered at the shirt. It was soggy from rain and the bilgewater at the bottom of the raft he’d floated on. A nice make, finely weaved, though it looked a little too big to fit the skinny man curled up in the far corner of the cage. It was a little see-through, but no more spectacular than that. “Any particular reason you’ve stripped him?” Daud asked Rulfio; it wasn’t like the shirt was going to tell him anything.

“It’s wet, sir,” Rulfio said, as if it actually answered the question Daud had asked. “He’ll catch a chill, and with what the poison’s probably done to him? Figured it was safer. Can’t tell us why he wants to talk to you if he’s dead of fever,” He added, perfectly reasonably, so Daud said no more about it and looked instead to Corvo.

 _Tiny_ was the first impression; he was practically skeletal, and the effect was made all the worse for the way the too-small clothing he’d been given, clinging to all the harsh angles. Without the big coat and baggy clothes he looked nothing like the Corvo who nearly killed two expert assassins without a scratch; he wasn’t imposing, or powerful, anymore. Mostly he looked pathetic, and hungry, and worn out. Tired by the unforgiving weight of the world on his shoulders, the hopes and dreams of a little girl who depended on him. Pained by the awful, obvious scars from his time in Coldridge, that Daud tried not to look closely at.

He approached the bars cautiously, the way he would to a wolfhound he didn’t know, but Corvo made no effort to leap at the bars, beating against the cage and lashing out with outstretched talons. He just looked up, something unreadable in his eyes. “So,” Said Daud. “You asked, I’m here. What do you want?”

 _Emily_ , said Corvo. Probably, anyway; there was no one left in the world that mattered to him anymore, and he made the sign over his heart. _Help me save her_. His dark eyes, almost as dark as the Outsider’s except for the gleam of colour in them, never left Daud’s.

Yes, Daud wanted to say, not knowing why but still desperately wanting to. Yes, of course, do you know where she is? I’ll send men to bring her to you right away. But no, her terrified scream as they dragged her from Corvo’s side, from under Corvo’s protective wing; he knew perfectly well why he wanted to say yes, he just didn’t like to think about it. Didn’t want to remind Corvo of it, and wasn’t that funny? “And what do I get in return?” Daud asked him, arms crossed over his chest. One thing he’d learned in all his years as an assassin, and perhaps the most surprising, was to make the terms explicitly clear. He wanted no doubts as to what their contract said.

 _You live_ , Said Corvo, just like that. Anyone else and Daud would have laughed at him, said he was shit-dumb if he thought he could take on a hundred of the best killers this side of the river and expect to win. But Corvo might be skinny, might be weakened from poison and six months of torture and four months of exceptionally hard work, brutally pushing his body long past its endurance just to see his little girl safe, but whipcord strength still showed in every muscle, in every hard line of his body and the old scars from backstreet fights underneath the new ones. Corvo was not any other man.

 _You live_ , Said Corvo again, ducking behind his hair, _And your people live. I won’t give you up to the Abbey. You can stay in Dunwall, as long as you don’t go after Emily._

That was more than reasonable. That… Those were incredibly kind terms, more than Daud had ever expected to get. Not even banishment? Nothing except a promise to do something he could barely think about doing anymore, with full sanction to go after the rest of the aristocracy? Earn his bread and butter as he liked, in a city he hated but made him good coin, all for a little help finding his kid? Daud squinted at him suspiciously, but there was nothing except honesty in Corvo’s face; a lurking fear behind his eyes, but not of them. Of course he wouldn’t be afraid of _them_ ; it was just the bars of a holding cell, bars that weren’t exactly like his ones in Coldridge but still bars so the distinction didn’t matter.

Rulfio glanced at him, head tilted; they both knew they weren’t ever going to get better terms than that, not from Attano and _by the Void_ , didn’t Corvo care? Wasn’t Corvo as haunted by Daud’s face as Daud was his, always seeing it in the worst kinds of dreams? Did he not want even a little blood in recompense for all the shit he’d gone through? He wasn’t going to complain.

Daud inclined his head to the both of them; mostly to Corvo, but to Rulfio as well to let him know that Daud understood and agreed. “Deal,” He said, and called over a different Whaler, who’d been watching from the balcony overhead, to start writing it out. “Rulfio, take him to Ike. And give him a shirt, for fuck’s sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that! The last in the series.
> 
> Had to give it a bit of an edit because I wasn't happy with a few bits of it, but they turned out to be minor so regular two day schedule should still hold.
> 
> Edit: Can't believe I forgot the damn summary.


	2. Chapter 2

The day dawned grey and cold, as it always had for every day of the year for the thirty years Daud made Dunwall his home. He arranged himself in bed, pretending to sleep, before Thomas could see him awake and start fretting. Judging by the glance he gave when Daud made his way back down to his office he knew the dark bruises under his eyes were his usual restless dreams making themselves known, and he didn’t approve of Daud neglecting himself in this way, certainly not after missing dinner on top of that.

Thomas, of course, didn’t say anything. He liked to think that his silent disappointment had a kind of weighty gravity to it, of the kind that Daud tended to use against Rulfio.

“Sir,” Said Thomas, clipped but respectful. “Ike wished to see you this morning, but I told him to let you rest.” Ah, the faintest of sardonic twists beneath his voice; how Daud had missed it. The boy made sarcasm an art and respect a bland disagreement through a kind of unwilling compliance with Daud’s will. He made a damn good second for that alone. “Ike wanted to get permission to use one of your bone charms to heal Attano. He’s taken it.”

Daud knew the one - useful little thing, outside of work. To use water as a catalyst for healing, said Ike, was a genius of runecraft and practical application; so long, he said, that open, bleeding wounds weren’t submerged in dirty water. Do that, he’d added, and they may as well kill the wounded and be done with it because of the high risk of infection being trapped in the blood. Daud had just told him to use it as he saw fit.

The rule still applied for Attano, because what was the point of sending him to a physician if he wasn’t going to use everything he could? “Tell him that if he needs some fancy ass herb he can get it himself,” Said Daud. He dragged over his map of Dunwall, irritably brushing away a few errant spiders. “Do we know anything about the new lord regent and his allies? The High Overseer?”

Thomas pointed to a file on Daud’s desk, one among many. It was irritatingly thin. “Lord regent Havelock was admiral for Gristol’s navy, and attempted to take control of the military after Empress Kaldwin’s death. He failed, but in the upheaval managed to evade criminal charges. Only the people involved in the coup know about it.” Daud pulled out a good sketch of Havelock, recognised it as the work of Pidge. He was a heavy-jawed bull of a man, with a nasty turn of face and small, greedy eyes. “Because of his military background the guards all respect him. I don’t think we’d be able to bribe any of them.”

“Lord Pendleton,” Thomas continued, pointing to another of Pidge’s work, “Recently came into his inheritance after the mysterious disappearance of his brothers Custis and Morgan, orchestrated by Attano with Slackjaw. He controls most of the seats in parliament and always votes in Havelock’s favour, but word from the servants is that they’re arguing a great deal behind closed doors. No one knows what about, but some of them are speculating it’s about miss Emily, Corvo, or Pendleton’s excessive drinking. We might be able to sway him, but I doubt it would gain much.”

Daud pulled out the last sketch; Teague Martin, said the few pages on file. The least amount of information from any of them. “All we know about him is that before he became an overseer he was a military man and did some work for the underground, but chose not to affiliate himself with any gang. He’s managed to become High Overseer, but he also argues a great deal with Havelock despite good public relations. I wouldn’t advise trying to make a deal with him, sir.”

He nodded; he’d expected as much. He flicked through the file again, carefully picking out any details that might be useful, and some theories the scouts had written down for him. What information was there was very little, but at least it confirmed that there was no point in trying an exchange of services as he’d done with Corvo. If Thomas said their energy was best put to use elsewhere, then that was what they’d do.

Instead he looked over the map of Dunwall, where he’d been tacking pins to the board and wrapping strings all across it in ever narrowing circles. Purely in the pragmatic interest of finding out where Corvo’d been hiding where not even Burrows could find him, and in the interest of making sure that it wasn’t close enough to their own base of operations that he caught a glimpse of a Whaler and followed them back. If the new regent had Emily, as he said he did when he made decisions based on her will, then that meant his agenda and Corvo’s had been aligned for a while, and they’d at least briefly shared a space in the interest of debriefing.

The three of them at the top _had_ to be the key to something. Either Pendleton or Havelock or, maybe, Martin had to own a building they’d used in the last four months, something that had been abandoned or cordoned off to keep away suspicion, but big enough for the three of them, Corvo, and river transport. “Thomas, clear Newman’s safe. Same plan as yesterday.”

Thomas bowed, “Yes sir,” And transversed away.

Another glance at the map, and Daud summoned Cleon, Walter, and Finn, tugging on the Bond that knotted them all together, but not yanking like he did when he was in a fight and needed backup. All three popped in, Walter and Cleon stumbling a little unsteadily, still unused to their gifted abilities. “Sir,” Said Finn.

Daud handed him the file, and let him rifle through it for a minute. “I need you to find a way to check their holdings. Any building they own along the river I want to know about. Take anyone you need to sort through the papers. Finn, you’re in charge of Martin’s. Cleon; Pendleton. Walter; Havelock. Report back to me in a week.”

Walter and Cleon both bowed deeply and popped away, but Finn stayed, nervously scuffing his boots against the rug. “Sir,” He said, “Sir, couldn’t we just ask Attano? He’d know.”

“In healing,” Daud answered, and Finn nodded. They both knew what Ike was like, and the man was bound to be worse after the overseer attack _and_ Daud putting himself in danger to stop Delilah, _and_ Daud sheltering the man who’s lover he’d murdered, and who Daud was expecting him to take care of. The poor man had probably started shedding even worse than usual.

After that, there was nothing to be done. It wouldn’t hurt to see Attano, probably, and Ike would probably let them speak, but he didn’t want to talk to Corvo about finding Emily just yet, not without something concrete on Emily’s location, or even a definite plan to find out where she was. His current plan mostly consisted of ‘see what turns up’ and ‘pray we can find something useful’, and that wasn’t exactly a reassuring thing to say to a dad whose daughter has just been kidnapped after being poisoned by people he must have trusted. If Ike hadn't given him any of the stronger painkillers  _maybe_ Daud could ask about where he'd been staying, but he didn't have very high hopes for Corvo's lucidity.

But, more than anything, Daud didn't want to see Corvo. They stood in the awful no-man's land of having been witness to the worst thing either of them had done and seen, stood as enemies on either side, and were now working together too closely to be anything but allies. Their shared goal of the empress on the throne was the only thing bridging that divide, and Daud thought it was a little too fragile to trust his weight on it. Pity and sympathy wasn't any sort of basis for a relationship, certainly not the kind that the long-dormant beast below his ribs was starting to ask for, blind to all the hurt he'd caused, and it wasn't fair to expect Corvo to trust his own weight on that bridge, cross over to Daud's side like Jessamine wasn't between them.

There was, however, a creeping sense of boredom. Daud started walking to the infirmary.

-:-

Ike’s little sanctum of healing and salvation was a small paradise of the tough, hardy plants that thrived in Gristol. The gutted warehouse wasn’t exactly the silt shores along the river that supported any number of greenery or river krusts, but the plants didn’t seem to care they’d traded mud for girders and concrete for normal stone. An infirmary, Daud had always assumed, was meant to be a place scoured of anything even remotely harmful, but other than the stumps that was all that was left of the Krusts, Ike seemed to let nature grow where it willed, so long as it wasn’t on his patients.

Plants, Ike had told him once, look nice. And things that look nice are as much a benefit to healing as elixirs, herbs, and good food. Daud didn’t understand, didn’t _pretend_ to understand, but he let Ike do as he wished; easier to do that than to try and find another physician willing to put up with Daud’s unruly pack of overgrown children. At the far end of the infirmary Pavel and Petro were both having an eye-watering slap fight over who got the nicer spoon; no one else would be able to wrangle them into order.

Daud crossed the room, nodding at the whalers who shouted greetings but otherwise ignoring them, until he found Ike stood over Attano’s bed. It was little more than a wooden pallet with a mattress and some sheets thrown over it, but it was sturdy and the woolen blankets were warm. And soft, when Daud put fingers to it in a touch careful not to wake the resting bodyguard. “How is he?” Asked Daud, quietly.

Ike was an old, towering creature from north Gristol who, like the rest of his countrymen, was a hulking beast of a man. He weighed roughly two soldiers and had the strength of four, and Daud had once watched him kill a man with his bare hands for daring to try and arrest his sick patient. He would be almost as terrifying as the long-toothed white bears in the far north of the world, if not for the gentle way he was handling a passed-out Corvo.

His mouth went very thin. “Good,” He said. “Not great. Lucky for him his joints are fine, but the poison _fucked_ him. Not been eatin’ enough, I don’t think. His systems are weak, have been for a while, and with all the plague goin’ around he’s damn lucky he’s not infected. But the poison has… It’s not good, and that damage’ll take a while to heal up. Doesn’t help the rest of him’s fucked to buggery, either. Most of his wounds aren’t healed; think they keep reopening ‘cause he doesn’t rest enough.”

Daud, agreeably, did not react to the pointedly missing _like you do_ , but they both knew he’d heard it. “Thomas said you took the healing bonecharm?”

“Yeah,” Said Ike, with not an ounce of remorse for having stolen from his boss. “Was gonna have Rulfio help, but since you’re here...”

He didn’t care either way, and had very little interest in nursing Corvo back to health, but he had nothing else to do until he had more information, and with Corvo probably out of his mind on whatever home remedies Ike conjured up it was a safe bet that Daud was going to be waiting for a while to ask about his base, or Emily, or if he'd liked the breakfast Cook had prepared. So he shrugged, and while Ike could have easily carried Corvo, the bag of supplies, and probably Daud too, he didn’t protest when Corvo was dumped in his arms. It wasn’t like it was _hard_ to carry him.

Corvo squirmed and mumbled voicelessly, limp arms shifting like he wanted to start making signs as Daud followed Ike into a brick building tacked on to the warehouse. It had probably once been a set of offices or a mess hall. When Ike took over the building he stripped it bare of anything and everything and with two scavenged pipes, four helpers, and a terrible mess, he’d set up rows of baths that the wounded men could lie in while the hiss of the bonecharm helped them heal faster under Ike’s supervision.

Empty, for now. The bonecharm didn’t work brilliantly on broken bones, and superficial wounds healed in a matter of days; no one else needed it, for now. Certainly a _good_ thing, in case Corvo woke up partway through - it didn’t seem fair to have him stripped naked and left in a bath, ogled at by a bunch of strangers. It was also incredibly, deeply uncomfortable carrying a half-dressed man with the intention of stripping him naked without people there to distract Daud.

“Set him down there,” Said Ike, starting to fill one of the baths. Carefully, Daud lay Corvo lengthways across the bench, head pillowed on some towels. “Get his clothes off, would you? Leave his pants, they can stay. Need to focus on the infusion - ‘s a delicate art, I’m telling you. No one appreciates art these days.”

Abso-fucking-lutely not. Daud wasn’t stripping _anyone_. “Just dump the leaves in and do it yourself,” Daud told him.

The glare he was given could have made the sea an icy bridge from Dunwall to Pandyssia. “And if I put too much in there?” Said Ike, dangerously low. “With the bonecharm it might heal the skin too much, make the scar tissue too tight and then it’ll have to be reopened and healed all over again, an' I don't think he'll be too happy with you for that. Or it might start eating away at 'is skin. _You do it_.”

Daud undressed Corvo.

Despite a perverse urge to just look at and touch all the scars, lingering for hours just to study the way the sight of them made something to go tight and painful inside his chest, Daud did it quickly and efficiently. He looked, of course - he challenged anyone not to - but after that he sat in a chair and _stopped_ looking. Pain was already throbbing along his own scars in sympathetic agreement that yes, scars were awful, painful things that were rarely the attractive kind that young soldiers wanted to get so they could use them to earn a quick fuck in an alleyway, before war and drink took those desires away. He didn’t need to feel any more empathy.

Corvo, in his sleep, mumbled something. Daud watched his lips shaping the air, but noiselessly. It was incredibly eerie to watch Corvo’s throat working beneath his skin, but have absolutely nothing come out. It was a little like saying hello to a dog on the street and the dog saying hello back, but in Daud’s voice. Lot’s of subtle and unsubtle differences working in diabolical harmony to create a truly harrowing realisation that Corvo really didn't have a voice.

Ike, apparently finished, motioned Daud to put Corvo in the water. Whatever Ike put in there stained the water a very pale bluish-black, and maybe if it was anyone else Daud would be worried; it wasn't exactly a common branch of magic, let alone healing. But he'd lain in that odd-coloured water enough times to know that if anything was going to stop the rough marks burning against Daud's hands from healing tough and painful, it was Ike's odd brand of magic humming from the Mark a pale copy of Daud's. He lowered Corvo into it.

It _should_ have been fine - what was a little nearly-naked bath in front of former enemies among friends? - except the second Corvo’s heels touched the water he started struggling out of the drug coma, and when his feet were submerged and the water was halfway up his calves he started struggling for real. “Corvo!” Daud snapped, trying to keep him from doing any harm to himself - he was clawing frantically at the air - “Corvo, damn it, you’re fine!”

Corvo disagreed, and kicked so hard he nearly upended the bath. Pain _exploded_ along his jaw, and it took Daud a few moments to realise that all of Corvo’s considerable strength had been used against him. Daud stumbled back against the bench; Corvo smacked into the concrete floor, shouting a gasp of pain, and then he was up and beating Ike away with a plank of loose wood, and _kept_ beating him away every time Ike tried to grab Corvo’s arms.

A sharp punch to his gut and Daud _wheezed_ , doubling over because _Outsider’s fucking balls_. Corvo was _fast_ too; blurring halfway across the room before Daud realised he’d started running, and he fired a sleep dart into Corvo’s thigh by reflex. Corvo smacked back down onto the floor, but he didn’t get up again.

Shit, he’d forgotten to unload the wristbow after going after one of Bunting’s Sokolov pieces. It was the fast-acting one too, that would keep Corvo out cold for at least a day. Damn it, Daud had been _hoping_ to get a word with him, see if maybe they could find some neutral ground. “Well,” Said Ike, rubbing at a bruise just starting to spread across his face. “Not going to complain about healing _you_ ever again.”

“Are you alright?” Daud grunted, retrieving Corvo’s prone body and dumping him into the water, or what was left of it. Ike turned on the taps again, against Corvo’s barely aware protests.

“Women’ve got nothing to complain about,” Ike answered, taking up a comb to start brushing out Corvo’s lank hair. “I’ll bruise pretty bad, don’t get me wrong, but I had worse from Rulfio when he was off his face on narcotics. _I’ll live_ ,” Ike insisted, not looking at Daud’s impressive scowl. “Should’ve known better’n to assume Corvo’d know I was a friend. Go on, fuck off ‘fore you get a chill from that wet jacket in this weather; pretend this never happened, eh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold the running theme of Corvo being weirded out and uncomfortable.


	3. Chapter 3

Daud sat in his bed for a long while, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palm to make patterns dance on the insides of his head. For a lot longer than that he sat and stared at the shifting clouds that covered the moon, a few candles burned low beside him; head buried in his hands because he couldn’t just pretend it had never happened, that Daud hadn't seen Corvo like that - all of him, all the scars and the fucking _awful_  fear.

The scars weren’t surprising; Daud wasn’t _surprised_ to have seen them. Coldridge was hell and Burrows would have wanted to take anything useful from Corvo, try to take by force secrets Corvo held that patently could not be bought. It wasn't a surprise they were there, those six months of agony written into his skin, healed but certainly not faded. It was just that there was _so many_ ; neat lines down his arms, from cuts or hot irons; welts raised and an angry, shiny red-pink cutting across his spine; the ghosts of wires neatly marbling his skin.

Daud couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen them any more than he could pretend he didn’t feel sorry for Corvo, or that he was tired of all the death he’d surrounded himself in. Here they both were, the Outsider’s Marked; equal in skill and power, set out on a stage for the god’s amusement. They’d both met the same fork in the road, and chose different paths. Daud didn’t think he’d chosen the right one, not for a moment, anymore. Whatever potential he’d had, the same that Corvo’d had, Daud had fucked away on drink, on cheap glory and cheaper thrills as he took coin for the only work he was good at. The both of them from Serkonos, he laughed quietly to himself. Dun skinned foreigners in a country that didn’t like foreigners. Taken away from their homeland too early, too young; latching onto their roles because they had nothing else to live for. The both of them skilled at the blade and the crossbow, and not much else. Cut from the same cloth - equals in all things, except maybe heart.

Thomas, who’d fallen asleep on top of Daud’s desk and that he’d not had the heart to shake awake, snored quietly. He didn’t even shift when Daud padded down the stairs and paced wall to wall, caged and not knowing why he was caged, only that he could see them, all those angry red marks, every time he closed his eyes. The scars on Corvo’s pretty skin were burned on the inside of his lids like the scar on Corvo's jaw was burned there, bright and livid. He rubbed his arms, cold.

Daud slunk through his rooms, taking shelter from the drizzle beneath the overhanging floor above his office. The Newman hit had gone well, better than he’d hoped, and according to Ike the bonecharm worked perfectly; Corvo had been moved into a set of rooms Ike had made some of the young apprentices, awed by the legendary Royal Protector himself, stop gawking and set up for him. Close to Daud, said Ike with an amused gleam in his eye and a conniving twist to his mouth; at his table during dinner, still a little out of it from medicine but cared for by Thomas and one of the physician's young apprentices, Ike's glances at him inviting him to talk to Corvo and his own coaxing to make Corvo feel welcome, in his gruff, brusque way. Ike thought he was being subtle.

Daud half wanted to move Corvo further away, out of sight and out of mind except for a few necessary days he took to inform him of the changes and plans and how close they were to fulfilling their deal. He knew about Corvo, from watching him dashing through the city on Euhorn’s whims that first year in Dunwall, the second because he didn't want to stop. Even without a Mark and magic he was as good as any whaler as he dashed across rooftops like he had no fear of the fall. He’d been an extraordinary spy, and Daud had watched him and watching him meant that Daud admired him, had started to _want_ him. Corvo would have been the best of them all, if Daud'd had the courage to lure him away from Royal service.

He paced from wall to wall, but quietly so Thomas wouldn’t wake.

The Outsider had robbed him of normal dreams but that didn’t mean that the Void, curious and reflecting all the worst hurts in his soul, didn’t give him nightmares. Recently it had taken to showing him Jessamine’s corpse cooling on the marble, Corvo held at sword-point behind her and utterly, completely lost. Tonight was much the same, only now he couldn’t sleep because of the way Corvo stood so quietly unassuming in the Void with those horrible, lifeless eyes he’d had when Daud had stabbed the empress and realised _shit, what had he done?_ He kept on staring all the while Daud tried desperately to get his eyes to spark with _something_. Even if it was beaten out of him.

White bands around his wrists, his ankles; iron manacles that had chafed him raw and bleeding. A lash across his face, splitting his lip and not entirely healed. Fingers that didn't close all the way, not properly; couldn't curl into his palm when he clutched helplessly at a sword that wasn’t there. Ducking behind his hair at dinner where he barely ate and said little more because a boy, not much younger than Corvo, paid him a compliment; shy as men as handsome as Corvo were never shy.

Back and forth, back and forth he paced and Daud hated himself so bitterly he tasted ash, because it was his fault, wasn't it? That Corvo was this shadow of a man, a wolfhound beaten down until all it could do was hurl itself against the bars and whine for its mistress, its pup that had been stolen away. If it wasn’t for Daud and his fucking short-sightedness, his greed and terror and the hand Burrows had wrapped around his throat, then Jessamine would be alive, and Emily would be safe, and he and Corvo could keep avoiding each other; respectful of mutual skill, but with the full understanding that Corvo wouldn’t hesitate to put him down like a mad dog if it came to it.

 _His fault_.

Except it _wasn’t_ , was it? It wasn’t. It _wasn’t_. He'd killed the empress for coin, yes, his people had to eat, but it was more that he had to keep his base a secret. If Burrows had revealed where they were housed to the Overseers then everyone would be dead. He'd had to keep them _safe_ \- Daud laughed bitterly to himself, because where did that get them in the end? Billie lost to the winds and half of them killed by Overseers anyway. Delilah still on his horizon, a pathetic attempt to save what was left of his soul.

There were bones, stark and shadowed. Too many hollow places. Before Corvo's arrest, before the whole mess with rats and plague and when the world was as it should be, Burrows had been one of those nobles who liked to chatter to him before they gave him the job. He’d complained that Corvo was all bone and stringy, mangy strength, not like a proper Gristol-born noble who actually _looked_ like a Protector. Said Corvo was less a warrior and more like a bedraggled bird brought in from the cold. Stringy and skinny and suited more to lurking out of sight, snatching baubles. But now there was an illness in the way his joints stabbed through his skin, hipbones jabbing outwards like a pathetic last attempt to keep Daud from picking him up. Worryingly easy to carry for a man that toweringly tall. Starved, fed just enough to keep him going, keep him lucid, but painfully thin.

No, no; _not his fault_. Daud had been the one to shove the blade through Jessemine's gut but he wasn't the one at fault. Not _technically_. _He_ hadn’t been the one to hold glowing iron to Corvo’s face, to his arms, and burn him in neat little rows;  _he_ hadn’t hung him from chains in the middle of a room and beaten him with the burning sting of the whip, the rod. He hadn’t done any of that, hadn’t called for it or allowed it; _he_ wasn’t to blame for those wrongs. It was Burrows who had done that to him, Campbell putting his expertise at getting heretics to confess to force a voice that was not there and wouldn’t speak even if it was. Daud had done none of that; _he wasn’t to blame_. Even if he was, what did he care? He'd made a wreckage of greater men for lesser reward and it hadn't turned his stomach.

Back and forth, back and forth, and Thomas slept on in the middle of all the pieces he’d knocked aside, snoring quietly. He’d wake with the dawn with grooves dug into his face from the way he’d slept leaning on his mask, a knot in his spine from the awkward angles he’d fallen into. Back and forth, circling the inside of his own fucking head, and of course Daud knew why he cared this time, why this one was personal, why it _mattered_ , and it had very little to do with the doom he’d cursed Dunwall with. He was guilty this time because it had everything to do with Corvo's dark eyes, dark as the Outisder’s, glaring at him in hopeless, protective rage when he closed his own. Shining wet with misery, Corvo's face as open and shocked as if his grief had sunk claws into his ribs and split him open, gutted like a whale in the Rothwild slaughterhouse moaning softly in pain. Corvo looking like he wanted his blood staining the marble too, his corpse going cold beside _hers_ ; failing in his duty but at least paying the right price for it.

There was still Corvo, weak as drowned rat, made of kitten bones and sodden hair stuck to his skin, who looked at Daud and did nothing but ask for his help.

-:-

Cleon’d had some luck, and found a few likely places along some tributaries. Mostly a few estates bustling with servants or cordoned off in quarantine districts, connected to the main river by canals, but it was a start, at least. More than they’d had when they started. “Good work,” Said Daud, spreading the papers across his desk. Cleon stood a little straighter with pride. “See what else you can dig up.”

Inclining his head, Cleon left. Daud flicked through the papers with a closer eye. The ones that just listed what titles and land Pendleton owned Daud set aside, and the ones that were left were the maps of the land he owned. Some Daud ruled out entirely because the canals that led to them, while not dry, weren’t in good enough condition to pass through, or were blocked entirely, according to some of the reports that blared out from the radio tower. Others Daud dismissed because they weren’t in areas that were abandoned, and so probably had servants still earning coin keeping them livable. Too many to keep silent.

A few Daud set aside to have his whalers look through. The canals that fed them were unblocked, near to the Wrenhaven, and were almost completely abandoned. Even if it turned out that none of them were the right places, at least there might be something interesting or valuable inside. If nothing else, Daud could let the men steal some proper bedding and mattresses, so they didn’t have to make do with sheets stuffed with scrap fabric and rags.

He leaned back, tapping his arm. Something didn’t sit right with him, thinking that Treavor Pendleton was the man who supplied the base of operations. He seemed too much a coward to want a papertrail connecting anything of _his_ to anything of _theirs_. He seemed more like the kind of man to spout ideals he could later deny just to save his own skin, because there was usually no hard proof of anything he said. Martin? Perhaps, but it was rare that an Overseer had property, and the High Overseers never really needed to own any, since all the Abbey was their palace.

Havelock, then. High-up military man, probably earned the money to buy a place in a campaign or two. He wouldn’t be afraid of lending tangible support to the movement, and if push came to shove he had the means to disappear. It certainly seemed like _he_ was the brains behind killing Corvo; he seemed like the only one with the balls to do it.

A hand tapped the desk to get his attention - _Corvo’s_ hand, its back was Marked. Daud looked up at him, faintly surprised that Corvo was even standing. Ike’s herbs were efficient, but potent; Corvo was certainly swaying, though that might have been due more to a lack of natural sleep, the healing exhaustion from the bonecharm, and lingering traces of poison. Or perhaps all of them; hard to say. Corvo stared at Daud’s jaw, and the bruise blooming dark and livid where Corvo’s knuckles had hit hardest. _I’m sorry_ , He said, gesturing to Daud in a sweeping gesture from jaw to belly. _I didn’t mean to_.

Daud felt his eyebrow lift. “No harm done,” He grunted, shuffling some papers around. “But, since you’re here, help us out a little; you must have had a base somewhere. Place to stay.”

Corvo grabbed a pen and moved to stand in front of Daud’s map, the nib hovering over it. He looked back at Daud and, seeing the impatient look, peered intently at the tiny diagrams. He gently traced invisible pathways along the canals, then drew a red circle on the bank of the estuary, and in a different pen wrote _Hound Pit Pub._ The pen paused again while Corvo thought for long moments. Underneath it he added, _Havelock owns it?_

“Think he might have left something there that tells us where he is now?” Daud asked Corvo. “He could have just gutted the place when you left it.” Corvo inclined his head reluctantly, because Daud wasn’t wrong and they both knew it; but it was the best shot they had. If the Loyalists had to leave in a rush, quickly but quietly, then it was a good bet they _had_ left something behind. A direct clue if they were lucky.

 _Maybe they stayed somewhere else? Pendleton didn’t really use his rooms,_ Said Corvo.

Daud hummed to himself. “Already got people looking into their other buildings to see if they have anything there, but if Havelock and the rest mostly stayed at the pub then it’s unlikely they’ll find something.” Keeping his eyes trained on Corvo’s large hands, refusing to look up at his face with Corvo’s shoulder warm against his, Daud asked, “Why did you show up here?”

 _Didn’t plan on it_ , Corvo said, also not looking at him. He was making the signs to the map. He huffed a long sigh. _I was too dangerous for Havelock to let me live. Too much power over Emily. They had boatman_ \- Corvo wrote a name down on a piece of paper: Samuel - _poison my glass, but he only put half of it in to try and save my life. He put me in the boat and sent me upriver, so Havelock and the Watch couldn’t find me._

“Did you know they were poisoning you?” Daud asked. He found it a strange thing to happen to a Protector, who’d had to go through many attempted poisonings, and it wasn’t like Tyvian poison didn’t have a distinct smell - surely Corvo would have noticed? But, then, Daud knew that people who trusted one another rarely noticed anything untoward until it was too late.

Corvo laughed at him, _Course I knew_. It was… odd, to hear a voiceless man laugh. It was mostly just shaking shoulders and a sort of wheezing puff of air. He wondered if it was a reflex he still had from when he was little; everyone knew that Corvo hadn’t been born silent. _I’m not stupid. I had to keep Emily safe. If they were willing to poison me, I don’t want to know what they’d do to her_. Fair enough, although Daud did have to wonder at how deeply ingrained his loyalty to the Kaldwin’s went when he poisoned _himself_ to keep them safe.

 _Samuel_ , Corvo continued _, Put me on the boat and sent me out on the river. I don’t know for how long. It was…_

“A few days at least,” Said Daud. Seeing Corvo’s sharp glance he added, “Ike’s guess. He said that since the poison seemed mostly out of your system by the time you got to him you either have the metabolism of some Pandyssian horror or it had been a week or so. Since you said half dose, a few days is as good a guess as any.”

Corvo relaxed, and nodded apparently satisfied. _I’m sorry for hitting you_ , He said again, _Can I come back later so you can tell me how it’s going?_

“Sure,” Said Daud, not really caring either way. He jotted down a note to himself reminding him to keep a few papers out to go through with Corvo, and to assign Finn, Cleon, and Walter to finding a way into the Hound Pits, and maybe to retrieve any possible allies of Corvo’s they could. If there were any, at least. After long moments Daud looked up, and Corvo was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what, sod it, it's Christmas, I've eaten my bodyweight in turkey, and I may as well; have this chapter today instead of tomorrow and the next one tomorrow's as well.

Corvo made a habit, after that, of stopping by Daud’s office early in the evening. Every day for two weeks, and it wasn’t even that he’d visited to see how the search was going - usually Corvo didn’t even talk to him. It was fine by Daud, he had a lot of reports to get through from Finn and Walter, who’d been pulled back from their search to join Rulfio, Galia, and Vladko in the Hound Pits; but he did have to wonder why Corvo chose the corner of _his_ office just to read.

Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - Corvo rapped his knuckles against the floor or the top of the bookcase he was seated on to ask a question, serene and thoughtful and too old in the eyes. Daud answered if he had one to give, and when he didn’t he just sent Corvo to talk with Thomas, who’d amassed a truly impressive collection of the most random information.

Sometimes Corvo perched high up, on the exposed girders in the roof out of sight, watching and listening and offering nothing. Corvo’s weapons were still in Daud’s desk (he checked, occasionally) and Corvo hadn’t snatched a forgotten sword or attached a wristbow to his off hand, so Daud wasn’t particularly worried. If Corvo didn’t care he was in borrowed whaler’s clothing, handsome in the deep blue reserved for the masters under Daud’s command, then Daud would ignore it. But it _bothered_ him in ways he couldn’t entirely describe, that Corvo was so easy in his presence despite all he’d done. Corvo never seemed to listen to the real world, when he took to the solitude and the silence of the roof; more to something just behind it, audible only to him in the same way Dark Vision was only for Daud. Whatever he listened to, whatever secrets the Void whispered to him, just made Corvo seem more determined to spend time with him.

He was on the roof, but reading instead of watchful, when Vladko popped in with a deep bow to Daud. “Sir,” He said, “There’s a situation at the Hound Pits.”

“Report.”

“Havelock’s suspicions that Corvo isn’t dead means he’s sent in a squad of Watchmen to kill or apprehend any of the surviving Loyalists. We’ve located Piero and Sokolov in the workshop but haven’t been able to find a way inside just yet. All indications show they’re alive.”

Corvo, Daud noticed, had switched his attention immediately; utterly focused on Vladko with the same kind of deathly silent stillness owls had before they swooped on a vole. He looked at Daud, book forgotten. “Tallboys?” Asked Daud, and sighed when Vladko nodded stiffly. Damn it - he’d _hoped_ to have avoided them. “Anything else?”

The whaler shifted, adjusting his gloves. “They’ve modified an arc pylon, we found their blueprints before a round of guards forced us from Havelock’s old room. We found nothing else on the second floor. There’s a woman in the ruined tower, hiding from the guards. We tried speaking through the door to her, but she said nothing to us.”

Carefully, Corvo shifted across the beams and dropped to the floor; almost entirely silent until he stepped harder than was usual and made Vladko whirl around in a panic, reaching for his sword by reflex. _Tell her I sent you_ , He said, with the same kind of understated intensity he must have once given Jessamine. _If she doesn’t believe you, tell her that Corvo saved her uncle because she asked him to._

Daud wondered if it was the right time to laugh about the fact that Corvo’s sign for himself was just _Crow_. He didn’t, though; Vladko looked at him, a little lost because he was one of the ones who didn’t know more than the rudimentary commands Daud taught them all.

“He said,” Daud told Vladko, so Corvo didn’t have to write it all out on the little notepad poking out from his breast pocket.“For you to tell her that Corvo sent you, and if she doesn’t believe you to tell her that Corvo saved her uncle because she asked him to.” Corvo nodded sharply, apparently satisfied that he’d been understood, but he didn’t go back to his perch as Daud expected him to. He just stood there, utterly motionless, as Vladko popped away just as suddenly as he arrived. There was worry drawing his mouth tight.

“We’ll find her, Corvo,” Said Daud, a wary eye on him. He suddenly didn’t seem to have that oddly friendly, or at least amicable, nature about him, the one that let him sit and read and talk to Daud like they were any other men working for common goals.

Corvo nodded sharply again, like a bird picking at carrion, and he stalked away.

The incident, entirely minor, apparently marked a change for the odd in Corvo over the next few days; he still sat overhead, sometimes out of sight and sometimes not caring either way until his peace was disturbed, but now there was a single-minded focus in him to study every inch of Daud. He’d listen to the whispers from the Void for hours on end, ducked behind his hair but no less watchful for it. It seemed less like idle chatter, what he listened to, and more like a deliberate search for something to confirm or deny things he thought, or to find something he could use to finally stop searching Daud out for company.

But maybe that last one was just Daud’s desperate guilt talking. He didn’t _want_ Corvo in his room, with him at odd hours of the day. He didn’t _want_ Corvo watching the stars die above them from the coming dawn with him, another restless night spent drinking whiskey and sharing cigarettes and telling stories that edged around their shared corpses, their shared hurts. He didn’t _want_ Corvo with his dark eyes, his severe face, his scars marking but not marring his pretty skin; Corvo with his strong, lean shape, the severity in his face decades too early, wrinkles coming in around his mouth and eyes and brow. He didn’t _want_ Corvo with him because he _wanted_ Corvo, in ways he’d thought he’d fucked out of himself with blood and death and the wild fervour he’d driven himself into, young and stupid and newly free.

Runners came to him now and then, always when Corvo was in earshot because the man seemed to have a sixth sense for that. Some of it was good news, mostly bad news, but now they had an old boatman helping them; Samuel with wary eyes and warier words, but with the promise of a meeting with Corvo seemed entirely willing to take them to and from base, so they didn’t have to wear themselves out just getting to the Pits. No luck, however, in actually searching the place, but the last Daud had heard they’d managed to complete the modified pylon and were cleaning out the unconscious guards.

Still Corvo watched him, watching _over_ him like a brooding hen, clucking and disapproving like Thomas was, but worse because Corvo had the food Daud liked squirreled away in his pockets, offerings for whenever Daud’s hands shook and he realised _bollocks, missed lunch_. His care and attention all for Daud up to and including organising his books, entertaining and educating the children who came to gawk at Daud’s very own pet Protector, and finding actual decent drink on his few, rare, visits out of the District.

Daud didn’t know what to make of it except it made him feel guilty because it was _his fault_ Corvo was here at all, offering him biscuits while they pored over the map trying and failing to come up with places Emily could be hidden since Dunwall Tower had proved a bust. _His fault_ they had to find her at all, and he didn’t understand _why_ Corvo could just forget all that. It made no _sense_!

“Why are you being so nice to me, Corvo?”

Corvo, picking out the raisins of his biscuit and feeding them to a white rat perched on the banister, looked at Daud in bemusement. _Why not?_ Said Corvo, as if it was that _easy_ , as if he didn’t have a golden locket with _her_ portrait inside, beaten up and scratched and dented but shining from love, the one concession he made to obvious expressions of affection.

Daud whirled away from him, looking out across the floodwater going dark and murky from the gloom; clouds fat with rain and the setting sun making candles necessary. The gutted, ruined buildings felt too much like a reflection, a mirror, and the comparison annoyed him, so he whirled back to Corvo, itching for _something_. He paced, restless and hating it; an ache in his knee saying a storm was imminent, an ache behind his eye saying that the Outsider was laughing at them, and why wouldn't he be? Two of his Marked working together; one the murderer and one that had nearly been a victim. Both of them nearly identical, the both of them men of violence and death, dealing it and victims of it both; the both of them dun-skinned Serkonan boys taken from home too early and pushed into places they didn’t belong, round pegs in square holes - fitting, but not properly. The both of them skilled with sword and stealth. Different only in mercy. The Outsider had probably engineered it long before when they were only ever possibilities, or else was thoroughly entertained by how it all turned out.

Corvo watched him patiently, not knowing why Daud was annoyed with him but entirely willing to wait for an explanation and _damn him_ , didn’t he care? Had Burrows fucked him up so badly that even a _murderer_ didn’t warrant a cold shoulder?

“ _I killed her_ , damn you!” Said Daud, angry and not knowing _why_ he was angry, only that he wanted the glittering hate back in Corvo’s eyes, the hate and anger he’d had for Daud when Jessamine slid heavily from the end of his blade. Daud struck, Corvo dodged; both of them quick as thought, too quick, too evenly matched. “Damn you!”

Daud circled, Corvo retreated, a frown starting in his face. Daud swung for him again, and Corvo _hit_ ; sharp jabs into his gut, his mouth, and there was no weakness in the blows, no half-measures. Corvo wasn’t fighting for real but he wasn’t going to not hurt him and _good_. Daud wanted that, wanted Corvo as angry as he should have been, hurting Daud because he deserved it, he'd hurt Corvo first and he'd  _ruined everything_ and it was the _least_ of the debts he owed, the _least_ he deserved.

He laughed for the effort, through the blood flowing over his chin. “Come _on_ \- you can do better than that!”

Corvo went for him again, and again, and _again_ ; vicious and sharp and merciless, easily dodging Daud’s strikes and ducking and weaving around him, never still, never pausing. A moment or two to look, and change his grip, and then he was back, unharmed and forcing Daud against his own desk. Each punch made his head _snap_ back, Corvo’s young face blurred and bleary and blood flowed from his mouth, into his mouth; coppery and hot from his nose, his bitten tongue.

But Corvo was still weakened, still ill, and Daud had won fights just because he could take a hit better than anyone else; one good blow to Corvo’s chest and he was down, wheezing, and Daud flipped him belly up against the papers. “Don’t you _care_ that I killed her?” He demanded, snarling, but he wasn’t looking for an answer; he didn’t care anymore. “Don’t you care that _I_ took Emily from you, that _I_ put you in prison, that _I_ caused _all_ of this?”

Daud had grabbed the neck of Corvo’s borrowed whaler armour in his fist, and Corvo’s hand went tight around his wrist, but otherwise Corvo paid it no mind. He watched Daud with the same single-minded intensity he gave books and balancing on cross-beams. He shoved, and Daud let him go - but he didn’t let Corvo get up.

 _You regret it_ , Said Corvo, with the kind of certainty that made Daud’s skin crawl. _You didn’t kill her for you, but for your whalers. You wanted them safe, and you thought that was how you did it._ His head tilted, calculating; his eyes were dark, so godsdamned black and intent and focused, assessing him like Daud was a street he had to cross unseen. Dark as the hungry depths of the ocean. _You’d change everything, if you could. You’d go back in time and make sure you never came to Dunwall._

Daud bowed his head, because of course Attano was right; of _fucking_ course he knew. Corvo might not have been a spirit from the Void like everyone in Dunwall thought he was, but that didn’t make him any less of one; he was a ghost who learned things no one was meant to learn, hearing the words of the Void the way the Void heard the sins of Daud’s soul. He slipped in and out of the most heavily guarded places without really being seen, only the flash of a grinning skull and guards waking on top of roofs and pipes and bookcases.

 _No,_  Said Corvo, like he didn’t care that Daud had him pinned and vulnerable and trapped by arms braced either side of his head, fingers digging into the papers. _I don’t care. Jessamine can’t forgive you, and I won’t, but you’re helping now. That’s all that matters._

Why? Why why why why why? Why did that _matter_ to him, why did Daud _care_ that Corvo was willing to forget? They were business partners, no more than that; all they had between them was three weeks of pleasantries and shared whiskies, long conversations out on the balconies in the spaces between dusk and dawn when neither of them could sleep; years of knowing about the other, watching each other, but never talking except for a handful of notes and keys left in conspicuously easy reach; a decade of mutual respect.

Jessamine lying cold between them, in Corvo’s heart and Daud’s head. The both of them made of scars and regret and mistakes, fucked up and fucked sideways and trying to do right in a world that wouldn’t let them, trying to fit in spaces they didn’t belong. Daud’s had worse bases for friendships, back when he spent coin like water and cared what people thought about him, but that still left _why_? Why come to Daud, why the friendly, silent companionship?

Corvo’s eyes flicked to his mouth, just a momentary little thing, and his lips parted ever so slightly; Daud felt his stomach swoop low in his belly because just like that he knew, _he knew_ , why Corvo was so intent on seeking him out, why he always looked like he wished his eyes were a more startling colour, his limbs less gangly, his shoulders more broad.

Carefully, ever so gently, Daud stroked his thumb over Corvo’s stubbled cheek. Corvo shuddered, eyes shining with concern. “Oh you fucking prick,” Daud breathed, and kissed him.

Corvo tasted like heat and the sea and lightning, a storm of magic just below his skin flowing through him like the rushing of tides, singing from his blood like the distant rumble of thunder. He tasted like blood and gritted teeth; Daud’s fresh blood smearing coppery and bright, and Corvo’s older blood dark and bitter; tasted broken down from six months of torture but refusing to give even an inch of ground. Like the jam tarts Cook made as a peace offering, ostensibly on Daud’s behalf but more likely because he took care of any of the lost things that wound up at the base. He tasted like _sex_ , pure and base in a long string of heat through Daud’s gut, because Corvo was kissing back after only a momentary breath of confusion.

He was good at it, soft and sweet as summer rain; a hand on Daud’s jaw, fingers curling beneath his ear; another on his hip, drawing him in. Corvo shivered when Daud licked the seam of his mouth, asking, and in answer Corvo’s mouth opened. Now it was wet _and_ good, filthy and hot as they tasted, and Daud rumbled happily because _Corvo wanted it_. Corvo didn’t stop just because it was Daud’s mouth on his lip, Daud’s teeth against the quick-quick-quick bird’s thrumming pulse in his throat; he just leaned back on his elbow, wanting to please in any way he was told to. But maybe that one was just Daud’s want talking.

But still, if it was Daud’s want or Corvo’s want or even just the Outsider having a good laugh at their expense, Corvo’s legs lifted, spreading enough for Daud to settle comfortably between them, and his knees sat below Daud’s ribs, heels in the small of his back and _squeezing_ , a shivery gasp from his throat at the long line of Daud’s cock against his, like he was surprised it was there. Daud thought he should probably put a hand to Corvo’s chest and push him away, have a talk about how _maybe_ having sex wasn’t the best idea when Jessamine and grief and Daud’s many, many, _many_ mistakes stood between them. Or how maybe Corvo should flick through any of the porn books tucked away in the Natural Philosophy academy’s bookcases, since clearly Corvo had no idea what he was doing.

That would have meant taking a moment to breathe, and think, and push away from Corvo. His office was _cold_ , and Corvo was a long line of heat, pulled taut against him and _really_ , what else was Daud to do? Daud wanted Corvo, Corvo clearly wanted Daud, and the tight press of their bodies kept away the chill creeping through the open roof.

“Bed,” Said Daud. He shoved away but Corvo’s grip around his shoulders was strong, and it was easier to just hike up Corvo’s legs higher on his waist and pick him up.

Corvo probably meant to squeak in surprise, but the only indication Daud got of it was his grip turning to steel, all of him clinging like vines. Daud thought, as he strode up the stairs, that his back was going to _kill_ him for that move in the morning, but it was an easy thought to ignore with Corvo’s dick hard against Daud’s belly, pressed into him with needy little shifts of Corvo’s body, the little shudders that went through him every time Daud’s forceful gait made him bounce.

 _Sweet_ in the way the things in Daud’s life was never sweet with how Corvo clung to his shadow, nuzzling into the soft place beneath his chin, when Daud put him on his own two feet and started to undo his belt, shoving trousers and pants down his hips and kicking them forgotten to a corner. Shirt, he remembered numbly; bandolier full of crossbow bolts and bonecharms first, draped over the back of a chair, jacket with the wristbow slot empty next, shirt and then, finally, naked for Corvo’s shy, startled gaze. Impatience curling hot in his gut, Daud reached for Corvo’s belt, murmuring, “Come on then,” And obligingly not reaching for him again when Corvo took a sudden step back, jerking himself roughly from the loose hold.

Yes, thought Daud as Corvo gave a half-stare to the bed from behind the ragged mess of his hair; they should have stopped to have a talk, first. Corvo looked at his dick with his lips pressed thin, hands nervously clutching at the hem of his jacket. He’d never been with a man before, and it wasn’t a stretch to think he had probably only been with Jessamine if the rumors - the _lack_ of rumors - were true.

But Daud was selfish, and it wasn’t his choice to make; Corvo seemed entirely willing to go into it blind, entirely trusting in Daud’s hands, and Daud wouldn’t insult him by questioning it. Corvo was more than capable of making his feelings known, the evidence of it turned tacky on Daud’s chin - he wiped it off with a rag, but he still probably looked like shit - and staining Corvo’s mouth.

Corvo pulled off his jacket and left it carefully draped over the railing. The boots he tucked neatly beneath the bed, lined up against the sprawl of his own; the trousers he folded like he needed the time to think, setting them down carefully. But, whatever he thought while hidden behind the mess of his hair, he let Daud pull him to the bed, and when Daud leaned back against the pillows, shivering a little from the chill prickling against his heated skin, Corvo settled on top of him with eyes blown wide, a crooked smile to his mouth; entirely self-deprecating, amused at his own inexperience.

But kissing was good; better than, with nothing to stop the friendly bump of their pricks, the rough slide as Corvo bore down with a shiver that went through the whole length of him. Daud pushed back, pretending to be urgent but mostly just enjoying the feel of Corvo’s palms against his scars, tracing the nicks across his chest, making constellations out of the scattered bullet wounds, curious and gentle down the one that carved deep into the inside of his thigh. Even gentler as he touched the one over Daud’s eye, but he didn’t ask and so Daud wouldn’t say; wouldn’t ask about the one on Corvo’s throat, older than all the others.

Corvo wouldn’t like being tipped over - Daud knew that with the same kind of instinct that told him to be wary of wolfhounds in the street - but other than going still when Daud turned him around, he didn’t protest. “Like this, if you don’t mind,” Said Daud, less for his own comfort and more for Corvo’s as he dipped oil wet fingers inside and watched him startle.

Daud wasn’t Jessamine, and he wasn’t presumptive or foolishly optimistic enough to think he could ever take that place. Everyone, for all the time Corvo had been her Protector, knew that he loved her with a devotion bordering on religious; everything he was, was for her. One fuck wasn’t enough to overshadow her, or take away the sting of her loss, and Daud wasn’t going to try. But he could, at least, handle him as gently as she must have done, give him the choice of letting Daud see his face or not.

After that it was almost easy to move Corvo as he pleased; Daud slid into him with a single, slow glide, and pressed him down with a hand on his shoulder and hip until they were joined in a long line of burning heat. Corvo put his hands on Daud’s knees, bracing himself, and Daud held him in place just high enough that Daud could fuck him deep but forcefully slow, at a pace that didn’t quite suit Corvo and didn’t quite suit Daud, but was a comfortable middle ground between the two. At least, despite his loose grip Corvo didn’t pull free, however much he squirmed impatiently, and when Daud reached for it, heat making his gut tight from the delicious, vicious squeeze of Corvo’s body, Corvo’s dick was hard and drooling in his fingers.

 _Outsider’s Void_ Corvo was handsome - he hadn’t let himself appreciate it before, too caught up in his own damned head and heart and slow beating, cold guilt. Despite illness and brutal overworking and scars that hurt to look at, Corvo was _strong_. Daud had felt it in his punches, but it was one thing to feel it in a blow and entirely another to have it in his hands, muscles bunching and hard beneath his palms, sliding beneath the skin the same familiar colour as Daud’s. Lean and wiry and long, shoulders that weren’t quite as broad as the cut of his jacket said they were but still lovely. Daud had to laugh, because Corvo really was aptly named with his dark eyes and narrow, pointed nose. The fingers gripping Daud’s knees had probably been elegant, fragile as feathers, before they’d been broken and healed wrong and broken again.

Daud wanted him so hard it _hurt_ , squeezing around his heart the same way pleasure drew his gut tight, a noose that tightened and tightened and wouldn’t give, Daud wouldn’t _let_ give just yet. He wanted to earn a space in Corvo’s heart not, necessarily, where Jessamine had been and probably still was, but beside her, maybe. Not a replacement but someone else, someone that couldn’t always put Corvo’s needs first but wouldn’t leave him in trouble, either.

He fucked hard, Corvo _let_ him fuck hard; holding Corvo in place with the weakest hold and wasn’t that such a delicious kind of power? To be allowed to control the way Corvo, willful and powerful and devoted, moved was its own heady kind of _good_ , fast-burning and utterly ruining. He wanted more of it, digging his heels into the mattress so hard he felt a spring give and _taking_ it because _Corvo let him_. Here Daud was full of mistakes and misplaced guilt and the cringing, shameful desire to finally start to do right, fucking a man who was full of the same, and he felt _good_ because finally, _finally_ he had some control over one part of that guilt.

Part of him wanted to stop, to let go and let Corvo move as _he_ wanted, give _him_ some control in a world that wouldn’t stop spinning without him. Daud didn’t because he was awful and he did want to make Corvo comfortable with him, but not enough to stop and Daud laughed bitterly, threw his head back with one thrust, two, _three_ and came before he could stop himself.

Corvo bore it with only a soft murmur of complaint, sitting back to look over his shoulder accusingly and gasp surprise as Daud’s dick slipped out of him. He’d not even wanked _himself-_ Daud laughed at him breathlessly, but when Corvo started looking properly annoyed Daud took his hand, settled him comfortably, and said, “Here, come on,” And jerked him off with their hands interlocked, Corvo’s over his and rough from years with the sword.

It was, Daud mused thoughtfully, a pretty nice dick as far as cocks went. Thin-ish, pointed, and with the slightest leftwards lean. He wondered what Jessamine had made of it, against all the rumors of Serkonan men being hung as horses. Or against all the rumors that Corvo was castrated as part of some weird occult ritual Serkonans used on particularly headstrong soldiers to keep them pliant and loyal. He came just as unremarkably, too; a soft hitch in his breathing, a rock of his hips into the shared grip of their hands, and then he was done, and Daud was wiping his hand clean with the bloodied rag he’d used earlier and, after a moment, Corvo too.

He settled back against his pillows, an ache starting to complain in his back and his knee complaining even more, with a strange kind of happiness glowing warmly in his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, on the usual schedule so three days of updates as a Christmas gift.

Corvo lay on his side, tucked under Daud’s arm but knees up against his chest. Soft puffs of breath murmured out of him, like he was talking to himself. The lines of his broad back were tense under his shirt, and Daud knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was some internal turmoil going on in that ragged head.

He took a long drag of his cigarette, content to let the silence last until either Corvo decided to speak or the smoke stopped coming.

A little internal struggle was the price to pay for Corvo in his bed, warm against his ribs, all things considered. Daud had killed the empress, held Corvo caged even if they’d come to their eventual understanding, and was still struggling to get that breakthrough that would tell them where Emily was hidden, or at least a way to get the breakthrough that would tell them where she was hidden; their agreement was the Whaler’s lives for Emily safe and sound, and Daud wasn’t following through on that agreement all that well. He was, frankly, surprised that Corvo even _let_ Daud fuck him.

Daud stroked down Corvo’s flank, feeling all the ribs and hips jabbing into his palm, scars bumping against his fingers. Muscle shifted and bunched beneath his hands, tense and uncomfortable with just the barest of returned pressure as Corvo leaned into the touch, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to allow it or not, or maybe like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to enjoy it.

So many months gone and she still stood in their heads.

“Alright, come on, what is it?” Said Daud, stabbing out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. Corvo curled in on himself even tighter, and didn’t turn around. He shrugged. Daud caught his wrists when he tried to roll away. “No, you’re not. I’m not leaving something between us. I don’t care if this is just a one time thing, we’re _talking_ about it.”

Corvo didn’t turn around to start making his signs, but he stopped struggling against the hold and, when Daud cautiously let go, he didn’t take the opportunity to run away. If anything he settled even deeper into Daud’s pillows, trying to push down the bunched up hem of his shirt. He reached back to write on Daud’s thigh.

 _J E S S_ , He wrote, and Daud closed his eyes. Of course. Of _course_ , he should have known - everything Burrows had ever complained about of the man all came down to his completely devoted service to her, the loyal way he stood in the shadow of the throne and cut down anyone even remotely threatening. There’d been a story that the first time baby Emily had been taken to court Corvo had accidentally taken the ring finger off of someone who’d reached out to touch her after he’d been warned not to. But he’d lived too long to not know that there was something else going on inside his head, connected to his willingness to have sex with a man and the way everything about it seemed new to him; something that not even the empress or his daughter knew about. Corvo was more fucked up than even Daud - there was something else. He said as much.

Since, apparently, Corvo’s answer was going to be a lot longer than Daud’s leg, Corvo sat up on his knees, shyly trying to make his shirt cover his cock. Absurd - Daud wanted to laugh at him - because he’d already got a good feel of it twice over, jacking him off to remind him that, yes, he _was_ allowed to get himself off too. Ridiculous; but he wasn’t going to stamp out this small bit of personality now that it was here, not with all the feelings Daud couldn’t entirely read shifting and roiling behind his eyes.

 _I loved her_ , Said Corvo, watching the rain come down through the broken roof. _She was-. I wanted her happy with me_ , He added, like everyone in the empire hadn’t already known that if she’d ordered him to he’d have gone down on his knees and serviced her in front of every royal ambassador and their wife. For fucks sake, Daud still remembered the scandal that swept through Dunwall when a serving girl walked in on Corvo having a bath and saw marks clearly left by a riding crop all across his ass and the backs of his thighs.

 _I miss her_ , Corvo said, before Daud could prompt him. _She was_ _-_ His hands hovered uncertainly _-Special._ He turned even further away, dismissive behind his shoulder. He was, Daud thought, one of the most weirdly beautiful men he'd ever seen against the harsh, grey light of the storm. Corvo watched it start to rage a little more from behind the curtain of his hair, hands flat across his legs; looked back _._ _I don't know what I want anymore_ , He said, then his lips thinned.  _I shouldn't want you, you're..._

Daud grabbed Corvo's wrist, feeling the strong beat of his pulse below his thumb. It wasn't to interrupt, Corvo'd stopped signing anyway, but otherwise he didn't know why. Maybe just to feel a little less like a sack of shit. "Her murderer?"

 _A man_ , He corrected, but Daud wasn't sure if he was just being charitable or honest.  _I've always wanted men. Too._ He looked a little surprised that he'd said it as out loud as a mute could, and stared at his hands a little like they'd betrayed him, and  _really_ ; they'd been dick-to-dick against a desk and then fucking for the better part of an hour in Daud's bed, and  _saying_ his wants was what had him like this?

Daud put his hand over his his eyes because how sheltered _was_ he that he thought it was something he had to deny - pretending it wasn't a part of him, that it wasn't as undeniable as his darker skin was undeniable? He must have gone through at least _some_ of the hidden districts where men like them tended to go for satisfaction in service to Euhorn and Jessamine, trying to find secrets to use against troublesome nobles. He’d once said he was from the Dust District? Daud remembered men like them common there, safely away from the eyes of the guards and the long reach of Abbey Strictures. There must have been one nobleman or another to take him aside at a royal function, or a soldier with hands roughened in the same way as Corvo's to take him quick and rough in the barracks.

But no, that was unfair. More likely Corvo was just conditioned to squash it down, to ignore his own needs and inclinations both because sex was a distraction and a liability for a spy, but also because he was in the beating heart of the empire, where one wrong rumour, one kiss with the wrong person, could land him in mountains of trouble. The Abbey barely tolerated sex between men and women at the best of times; Corvo would have had a hell of a time escaping them if they’d caught wind of him fucking men. And the Outsider only knew how Jessamine would react to the revelation that her bodyguard and lover and the father of her heir was just as interested in men as she was.

“You really pretended you weren't an invert?” Daud asked faintly. “For _years_?” Dying in her service was something Daud could understand - not agree with, because it had made his job difficult, but understand - but to make himself so deliberately unhappy? Just to please her?

Corvo either had a masochistic streak a mile wide, or he was one of the most selflessly loyal, unspeakably loving bodyguards the world had ever seen. It was a wonder no one outside the royal family had snapped him up if that was how he treated the person he loved; a guard who kept so large a part of himself secret just to protect the reputation of the people he was guarding, making _himself_ miserable purely for them, was not someone they'd easily overlook - silent, terrifying Serkonan or not.

 _I love her_ , Said Corvo, as if that was any kind of answer at all, as if Corvo didn’t _matter_ so long as Jessamine was happy; like his own happiness was secondary to hers and Emily’s; an enjoyable side benefit, instead of what it should have been. He looked at Daud's hand resting on his leg.  _What now?_ He asked.

Daud, hand still mostly over his eyes, said, "Depends on what _you_ want. Don't care if it's just this once or if you want something longer; I've been a port in a storm before, I'd understand."

 _Don't put this all on me,_ Said Corvo with a scowl, shoulders around his ears like he wanted feathers there to fluff out.

"Should it be all on me?" Daud demanded, flinging his hand away from his face. He sighed at the look on Corvo's face. "Yes, fine! I'd like something a little more permanent, I think we'd make it work, Void knows how. Fuck me."

Corvo, apparently satisfied with getting something said aloud that Daud would rather not admit to the same way Daud got Corvo to admit his inversion, smiled a little, small but soft. _Later_ , He said, which was as good as saying he'd take the chance that they _could_ make it work, or at least that he was willing to give them the time to see if it could while he made that decision, so Daud didn't press.

Corvo lay back down under the curve of Daud’s arm now that he’d filled his speaking quota for the day, with a friendly nudge of his feet to Daud's calves before he interlocked their legs properly. After a moment, Daud felt his hand creep across his belly, petting through the greying hairs. His fingers wrapped loosely around Daud’s cock, stroking a little, and Daud coughed a little awkwardly, “Yeah, you’re not getting any more of that tonight.”

Corvo shrugged, kept stroking like he was fascinated by the feel of it. Daud didn’t say anything about it, though, because it was nice to have someone touch him without expecting him to do anything like kill someone or fuck again even though it was too early for him. Daud’s had worse bedpartners than Corvo, if all he was going to do was fondle and look and let Daud smoke in bed. Corvo's hand, eventually, went to Daud’s scars. He thought it odd that Corvo would have such a fascination with them - he had mirrors of them on his own body, the slashes and cuts and long, thin lacerations that stung and bled for weeks; riddled with bullet holes and crossbow bolt marks from lucky idiots. But, then, Daud was stroking Corvo’s, too, wasn’t he? The both of them were odd like that.

Metal rang hollowly, and Thomas’ blond head poked over the top of the stairs. He looked unfairly grateful that Daud and Corvo were covered by the blankets; like he’d expected to walk in on his parents mid-fuck and was dreading that interruption, and pathetically glad he hadn’t. “Sir,” Said Thomas, waving a letter over his head. “A note from Emily, for Corvo. We found it in the attic room. She’s at Kingsparrow fort.”

Corvo, against his ribs, went very, very still. He took the note from Thomas with utmost care, carefully smoothing down the wrinkles, but he didn’t stop Daud reading over his shoulder.

 _Corvo_ , it said in a neat but inelegant script, with little doodles of flowers and crows holding swords on the sides. _Remember before when I mentioned a special drawing I was working on for you? This is it. I don't know where you went, but I hope when you get back you see this and like it. I'd like to take it to Dunwall Tower with us. Everyone's acting strange tonight. Samuel was whispering to Callista about a flare launcher that she was supposed to use to call him. He told her to lock the door to my old tower. I heard the Admiral tell the others we are leaving tonight for a place called The Lighthouse on Kingsparrow Island. I hope you get back before then._

He looked up at Thomas. “It was a drawing of you,” Said Thomas. He looked a little proud, actually. “It’s very good, sir. She’ll rival Sokolov one day, I’m sure of it.” He turned to Daud, then; he straightened and smoothed out his face. “Vladko made contact with Callista Curnow, the woman in the Tower. Havelock, Martin, and Pendleton turned on the rest of the servants and dumped their bodies in the river. Only Curnow, and Cecelia in the abandoned buildings nearby, were spared. Samuel disappeared shortly before, but it’s a safe bet he would have also been killed. She’s willing to come here for a few days to care for Emily while we secure her on the throne.”

“Good,” Said Daud, smoothing a hand down Corvo’s back. He’d gone worryingly pale. “Send for the boatman, and see if you can’t find him a ship to take us.” Thomas bowed deeply, started to leave, but then he stopped and turned back, wringing his hands a little. His eyes were fixed on Daud’s arm around Corvo.

“Sir, is this...”

“None of your business,” Daud growled, entirely unwilling to have that sort of conversation - not _now_ and not _ever_. If it came to it, Corvo was going to explain it to them. “Send up Fergus and come back as soon as you can. I want a plan ready and Fergus’ squad ready to move.”

Thomas nodded. “I’m pleased for you, sirs,” He added, in a way that Daud wasn’t entirely certain if it was sardonic or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Emily's letter is taken from the game verbatim because sod it, it makes no difference if I do or don't.


	6. Chapter 6

There were many ships left abandoned on the Wrenhaven because of the plague, either moored and left forgotten or anchored in the middle of the water full of weepers or corpses as people attempted to outrun or hide from the illness slowly taking over. Most were small little things like Beechworth’s Amaranth, but others were large cargo vessels and even, once, a half sunk pleasure barge.

Daud sent a handful of men to shadow Samuel and to help him spot suitable ships, because it was a surprisingly narrow field that they needed. Large, but not a whaling ship; just big enough to take a squad, small enough that the guards at Kingsparrow could mostly ignore it. It had to be one the boatman could work, or at least make educated guesses at. It also had to have sleeping rooms, because it would take a good few hours to make it from the Flooded District to a mile or so from the river mouth and Daud would bet his last coin that the little empress would need a nap at _some_ point, if not Thomas and his sleeping habits that were almost as appalling as Daud's.

Corvo, while they waited for the stolen ship to come chugging up the floodwater, stalked around Daud’s office and, when the silent tread of his pacing became too gratingly rhythmic for him, he Blinked up to his usual place on the girders and circled around there, hopping lightly from one steel beam to another. Daud watched him in mild concern, but he didn’t do either of them the disfavor of asking if he was alright; they both knew the answer to that.

Instead, and of infinitely more use to the both of them, Daud read out the plan for him again, knowing that Corvo was listening because Corvo was always listening, ear pressed to Daud’s chest where a heart still beat. Calmer than the tightness around his lungs and the weakness in his bad knee said he was, Daud told Corvo about the port jutting out into the water where, with all luck, they’d land under the cover of darkness. It was, he told Corvo, just far enough away from the actual beachside landing and the docks, hidden behind a large outcropping of rocks, that no one would be any the wiser.

After, he said, they would all make their way up to the lift that took them up the lighthouse, Daud taking Corvo along if Corvo’s shorter reach couldn’t keep up with them. It would be a hard run through the dockside entrance once Daud froze time to the staircase that led, indirectly, to the lift. From there they’d scale the outside of the lighthouse, along the scaffolding, to the penthouse where, some servants said, Havelock had Emily cooped up.

“It’s up to you what you do with the Conspiracy,” Daud told Corvo. He would be on hand to help out if need be; Lizzie might make an exception for her ‘no livestock’ rule if he asked her nicely enough, and if nothing else there was always either Coldridge or a shipping crate to the frozen wastes of northern Tyvia. As a last resort, anyway; Daud wouldn’t blame Corvo for breaking his no-kill rule just this once and loose a bolt or seven into their eyes.

Corvo, of course, did not answer, He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and Daud couldn’t read his face because he had the awful, grinning mask back in place, like he needed it to help school his thoughts in the same way Daud used the cigarette dangling from his fingers. But he didn’t need his face or his words to know how he felt - it was difficult to not know what was in his head after three days fucking him stupid, having to mostly guess because Corvo didn’t have the good grace to tell him he just wanted a cuddle like a normal person. Sodding fool.

Daud tacked another bonecharm to his belt, one that sang that the shadows would carry him on swift currents faster than the one Corvo had singing on his. “We’ll get her safe, stop worrying.” Corvo threw a pebble at him.

Eventually Thomas, Rulfio, Fergus, and Fergus’ handpicked favourites of his squad all popped into the room, and all of them except unflappable Thomas flinched when Corvo flung himself abruptly to Daud’s side in a burst of Void power and reckless leaping from the top of things, which he seemed to do quite often. Corvo still said nothing, but he was a tense line of anxiety by Daud’s side, leaning against him like he wanted a hug but didn’t want to ask for it in front of all these people he didn’t know.

“Beechworth is waiting, sir,” Said Thomas, not blinking at Corvo and his place by Daud’s side but looking like he very much wanted to offer some words of comfort, too.

“Good,” Daud told him, nodding to himself. “We’ll arrive by sundown so get some rest until then, look over the maps if you have to. And remember that the guards aren’t to be harmed if you can avoid it, and the Loyalists are Corvo’s to deal with.” Daud didn’t bother going over the plan again - they’d already done it once, he’d done it twice with Corvo, and any more than that was unproductive.

Neither of them got any rest on the boat - a rusted old barge that had cabins and a kitchen below deck - but Corvo allowed Samuel to pull him into a hug before they set off, and they sat talking at the wheel for a long time. Well, Samuel murmured and Corvo made the occasional sign, and the even more occasional note for Samuel to read. Daud, meanwhile, commandeered one of the cabins for himself and sat for a long while on the bed, sharpening his sword.

Corvo’s white rat - one that seemed to handle possession better than the other white rats, and didn’t die when he was ejected from her - looked up at him with her sharp face, squeaking loudly. Daud put her in the box beneath the rickety bed so she’d stop; there was something entirely unsettling and eerie in her gaze, and he didn’t trust her not to have some way to send thoughts to Corvo while they scurried about as her. She squealed at him, but didn’t bite or try to scrabble out of the box, so Daud was content to ignore her.

The boat droned against his ears, rasping and monotonous and _loud_. The ring of whetstone against steel only added to the din, and for a moment Daud thought about going up on deck and watching the water slip past the hull. He should, Daud thought, go see to his men, make sure they were all okay and prepared, and had enough sleep darts. But Thomas was already doing that for him - he could hear the boy talking to them beneath the endless rumble of the boat - and he’d only be interfering if he did; they wouldn’t thank him for his mothering. He should take his own advice and sleep.

He kicked his boots off and lay on the bed, blankets pulled up to his ears against the late-autumn chill. He turned on his side - the other side, when that didn’t work. He was tired but he wasn’t _tired_ , and manic, restless energy buzzed in his limbs. _Sleep_ said his head, and _no_ said the anxiety making his thoughts feel detached and remote.

An hour or so said the clock with a fractured face on the wall. Daud sat up with a huff. “What?” He barked to the knock at the door, and instantly felt every inch of him an old man being teased for his grumpiness with the way Corvo slipped into their room with a soft, worried smile; his mask was dangling listlessly from his fingers. It was still unsettling - the Loyalists’ inventor had done his job _too_ well - but at least it wasn’t covering Corvo’s face anymore.

 _Can I stay here?_ Asked Corvo, as if Daud wasn’t lying on his half of a conveniently available double bed shoved into a room too small for it.

Daud shrugged, and lifted the covers for him. It made no difference to him where Corvo decided to sleep.

Like Daud, Corvo only pulled off his boots and his weapons, tucking both neatly away in the scant amount of space left over, and got into bed fully clothed and armoured. He looked good in the deep blue of the master’s uniform, but Daud didn’t think it was the right time to say that with the way Corvo was still a little withdrawn, hidden behind all his walls. He let Corvo curl up, warm and solid, against his back as they waited out the long hours down the river.

-:-

“They have a Wall of Light,” Said Galia when she reappeared back in their group. She idly fixed her cuffs. “There was an overseer and a guard; I managed to take them out and hide them in some of the crates they were unloading, but I couldn’t see where the fuel port is to take it out.”

“Rulfio, go look,” Said Daud, paying attention but keeping an eye on Corvo at the helm with Beechworth. The boatman was saying something in an undertone, all his focus on Corvo like it hadn’t been the entire trip with his nervous glances at the whalers milling all around him. He seemed desperate to say it all at once, like he didn’t want to take the chance that he wouldn’t get to if he didn’t, but Daud was too far away to hear. He watched Beechworth startle when Corvo took his hand and gave him a hug, quick and sudden but affectionate - close, in a way Daud hadn't earned yet, probably wouldn't until long after Emily was back on the throne.

Corvo, mask back in place, reappeared next to him. “Wall of Light on the dockside entrance,” Daud told him. Corvo huffed. “Yeah, well, Rulfio’s gone to poke around a bit. We’ll wait for him on the watchtower,” He added and, keeping a careful eye on the guard stumbling clumsily through the sandy mud in case he slipped and happened to catch a glance of them, one by one they Blinked to the watchtower and disabled it; Corvo having to trot across some rocks before his limited reach could bring him safely to them.

It wasn’t a long wait before Rulfio poked his head out of a large, open pipe on the side of the building and pointed triumphantly to the no-longer active Wall. Rulfio also made a gesture at it that Daud politely didn’t read, and met them beside it. A quick glance around showed no open door for them to disappear down, and the large gate barring them from the open dash across the courtyard couldn’t be opened without drawing a lot of attention. _Shit_.

“Sir,” Said Thomas in a careful murmur, too soft to carry, as he followed Corvo’s impatient gestures. “Do you think we could hide on the top of the gate while you freeze time?”

Daud looked. “Might work,” He said cautiously, not very optimistic of their chances. Stopping time completely was a lot shorter than just slowing it a little, and the courtyard, from the plans they’d stolen, was too large to cross from a dead stop. Just running through, as he’d hoped for, would have bought them a precious second or two of confusion as the guards and Overseers on patrol didn’t believe what they were seeing.

 _I can slow time too, if it helps,_ Said Corvo, tapping his arm to get his attention. _But I don’t know if you’ll stop too._

That was an interesting aspect of Corvo’s powers he hadn’t ever considered. He’d thought controlling time was a gift all his own, like Pull was. “Keep it as a last resort,” Daud said finally, not willing to make a hard decision when they didn’t have the time to work through the limits of their respective powers - everything would be so much simpler if the Outsider was consistent. He gestured _follow_ and jumped up to stand on the gate. Corvo and the whalers followed.

Stopping time was a singularly unpleasant experience, matched only by hagfish somehow slithering down the neck of his shirt and wiggling slimily against his skin. It tasted like the sea and utter, unfathomable _wrongness_ , like deliberately dislocating his shoulder. Running through it, trying to keep his whalers _and_ Corvo in his timestream, was like trying to drag cats from water and all the cats wanted to go diving, tethered to him by only a single, fragile leash.

“Quick!” He called, trying to give them a focus so they didn’t fall back into the other time, and he dragged them all along through the thunderous moments barely stopped by his fragile magic. Past an Overseer scratching his chin beneath his mask, up the stairs just enough to be out of sight, and Daud felt time slip from him just as his shout reached the ears of the guards and they all went on alert for a threat that wasn’t there anymore.

“I’ll find you!” One of them bellowed, too far away to notice them.

 _Follow,_ He ordered again, testing the chain leading all the way to the top and, finding it strong, starting to climb as quickly as he could. Dark Vision showed a few guards on the landings milling around, peering over the railings at the sea in boredom, and Daud didn’t want to push their luck by waiting for them to decide to turn around and do their job.

The bridge had an active arc Pylon, but that was easily enough avoided. _Transverse_ , Daud said, and appeared on the roof of the walkway leaning to the lift. He was surprised to find Corvo’s weaker Blink had a longer range than he’d thought, easily crossing the same distance, though he slammed hard into the edge and had to pull himself up. Another gesture to follow and they trotted across the walkway roof, the guards below none the wiser, and then it was the lift, and all the way up in what Daud thought was less than a minute. There wasn’t space enough inside for all of them, the space that a young Whaler and Rulfio happily took over to fight over who got to pull the lever with Thomas and Corvo squashed in with them, so the rest of them just sat on top, flattened so they didn’t slide off.

It was, in all, a little anticlimactic getting to the penthouse. The scaffolding supporting the whole structure was maze-like, interlocking, and perfect to climb across. Daud half wanted to take it back to the base so the young ones would have a place to practice that was safer than the streets filled with weepers. It went high enough that they made an easy jump to the glass roof, and they watched Havelock have his meeting with two other people sat at the large map in the centre of the room. The only difficult thing, it turned out, was getting _into_ the room, because Burrows’ paranoia still made things difficult and the glass was bullet-proof, sword-proof, and Rulfio-proof. Annoyed, Daud called them all down and they had to carefully traverse their way all the way down to the lift and start walking the proper paths.

There wasn’t any point, Daud told them, in pretending to be stealthy anymore - there was nowhere for the loyalists to go that wasn’t going to end in them splattered against the rocks below, picked at by seagulls - so they just ambled along, firing sleep darts into the guards and leaving their bodies slumped to the floor, blissfully asleep but destined to wake up with knots the size of fists for the positions they’d fallen into. There was a perfunctory rear-guard just in case, but Daud didn’t think they’d need it.

The penthouse was just as gilded, grand, and nauseatingly expensive as Burrows’ taste always tended towards. Fergus and his handpicked, armed with their handful of remaining darts and many more unused bolts, took up positions above the doorway, out of sight in case any guards did happen to show. Thomas and Rulfio both disappeared to perch on the large light illuminating the map, and Daud stood beside Corvo while they listened to Havelock monologue to himself. Rulfio and Thomas both peered down;  _Dead,_  Thomas signed to them, pointing to the corpses of Martin and Pendleton slumped in their seats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting to the end now. Crow was only ever going to be in three parts partly because I don't have the confidence to write something longer and partly because I haven't played any of the sequels yet.
> 
> Ah well, still two more chapters to go.
> 
> Fun fact, most of their trip to the penthouse is based on how I do this mission. The only difference is right at the beginning in the dockside entrance, because I always go through the emergency boat room to deactivate the wall rather than just run through using stop time.


	7. Chapter 7

Daud felt Corvo go very, very still beside him, and realised that even in the depths of their betrayal, even justifiably angry and vengeful, his compassion extended even to them. He hadn’t meant to do more than rough them up a bit, frighten them, and then leave them without any power or any way to get that power back. He’d meant to take his daughter back without any harm coming to anyone.

Havelock, oblivious to them lurking out of sight, continued talking to himself, justifying to the dead bodies why he had to kill them, why he was the only one who should be in charge of the empire. He did show a little self awareness in that he suspected Corvo was coming for him, and that he’d expected no less for snatching his daughter and trying to kill him, and _succeeding_ in killing almost everyone else. He understood, at least, the precarious situation he put himself in, and how his gamble hadn’t paid off.

Corvo listened to it all with the same, determined intensity he’d given Daud. Even though the mask hid his face, Daud suspected that there wasn’t anything to read on Corvo’s face anyway; he was frighteningly good at being professional, even when his hands were trembling a little around the hilt of his folding sword.

Slowly, Corvo stood and walked to Havelock. Daud followed, made a short gesture to keep Rulfio and Thomas where they were. He felt a short moment of panic when Havelock, leaping back in surprise, slammed his hand down on a button and a small squad of guards appeared out of _nowhere,_  but Fergus and his team used up the last of their darts bringing them down and, when two more showed, choking them unconscious, leaving the bodies to fall with meaty _thunks_ as they retook their position.

“Corvo,” Havelock murmured, eyes only once flicking to Daud and sliding off just as quickly.

So he was at least smart enough to know who to watch, Daud thought uncharitably. Not smart enough to know that he’d have gained a lot more for a lot less hassle leaving Corvo alive and in Emily’s shadow, but then Daud supposed he had to thank the fool for that short-sightedness - he’d have never had Corvo clutching, briefly, at his hand for comfort if Havelock had been as well endowed in sense as balls. Daud gave Corvo's strong fingers a squeeze he hoped was reassuring, and let go quickly so Havelock didn’t think about any other brilliant plans.

In answer, Corvo took off his mask and put it on the table, next to Pendleton’s glass-eyed corpse. _Why?_ He asked, but a hammering of blows against the inside of the door, deeper in the room, drew his attention before Havelock could speak, and Emily bellowed threats to Havelock. Truly creative ones too, Daud had to give her that; personally, he didn’t think a time-out would do a world of good - Havelock seemed the kind of ambitious that was blind to everything except itself, like a narcissist in a shop that sold mirrors. He’d seen nothing except his own future and now he had an empress who hated him, a Corvo who looked torn between sleep darts and plucking out his eyes, and his only allies dead in front of him.

Havelock knew that; he laughed sourly, humourlessly, “Did you really think I’d fight you, Corvo?” He took a long draught of his whiskey, emptying it nearly in one go. “Sorry to disappoint,” He added, like he was used to doing that to people.

Corvo said nothing. Daud wondered, suddenly, if it was because Havelock couldn’t read his signs; it seemed utterly baffling that he didn’t know _some_ if he’d spent all this time and effort commanding him to kill and been disappointed by Corvo’s brand of poetic justice. The only reason Daud knew any at all was because one of his whalers - one of his first - had been unable to say more than ‘tong’ after surviving a lightning strike, and needed to speak with her hands instead.

“The key,” Havelock continued, as if Corvo’s heavy, disappointed gaze on his back didn’t weigh on him. He stared at the little gold thing for long moments; then his eyes slid to Corvo. “You’ve left quite an impression on her, did you know that? She asked about you constantly.”

At his side Corvo went protectively still, and Daud felt his hand go to his sword in a way that said he was very ready to unleash absolute _hell_ if Havelock’d told her he was dead just to hurt her. Havelock didn’t notice, or maybe didn’t care; he sounded resigned when he said, “In the end I told her everything: from the beginning when we’d had such noble goals in mind, to the end when we were all fighting about who we could trust. And she listened to it all, eyes wide.”

On top the light Rulfio and Thomas shared glances from behind their masks, but Daud didn’t need to see their faces to share their concerns; what was Havelock trying to do? He was watching Corvo unblinkingly, unwaveringly - he had to see that all he was doing was just making his end more painful, all the closer with the way his words made Corvo snarl and hiss like an enraged mother cat. Was that what he wanted? To escape whatever undoubtedly awful punishment Corvo had in mind by making him angry enough to kill? Or was he just melodramatic and stalling for time, hoping that if he held Corvo off long enough new guards would come and replace the old, and he could flee?

He turned away, towards the fire; utterly unafraid of the sword Corvo’d taken out, the anger burning bright and furious in his face. “She’s become an interesting girl; she’ll make a fine empress.”

Corvo wanted to kill him, and he didn’t. Corvo was shit as an assassin because he believed in killing as a last resort, believed that there was a gentler path or, at least, a more just one than murdering indiscriminately. There was no intent behind the sure grip he had on the hilt but there was desire, and fury, and betrayal an empty space in his chest neatly mirroring Daud’s, hungry for the blood and pain of the people who carved it just so it would stop feeling so much like a gaping wound.

But Corvo wouldn’t go through with it; Daud knew that in the same way he’d known that he’d have never, ever been able to kill Billie. And if Daud was wrong, and Corvo did, then he knew that Corvo would regret it not for the loss of life but because he thought he should have been strong enough not to.

His bandolier still had a few sleep darts left over - he offered one to Corvo, not minding if it was taken or not but at least wanting to give him that choice. _Thank you,_ Said Corvo, loading the dart into his crossbow and, before Daud could pull away, squeezing his hand. He didn’t let go when Rulfio and Thomas dropped to the floor and Desmond joined them from his place guarding the doorway. He continued to hold when the whalers each took up a body. “What do you want to do with these ones?” Rulfio asked Corvo, jostling the corpse of Martin on his shoulder.

 _I don’t know,_ Said Corvo. All the fight had gone out of him, all the blazing, righteous glory gone from him to leave him tired, and worn, and maybe having done too much too early as Ike had warned he was going to. _I don’t care._ He took up the key like he was holding the weight of a mountain, and he looked at it with a face of such abject weariness that Daud nearly ordered Galia to take him down to the barge still waiting in the bay. Even with the lines that had always been carved in his face he looked a lot older than usual.

“Prepare Havelock for the cells,” Said Daud, something of a question in case Corvo decided on a different fate, but no objection came. “The bodies can go to the river. I don’t want them on the ship.”

All three nodded. “Yes sir.”

 _Thank you,_ Said Corvo, with slow, shaky hands. He didn’t say if it was for taking charge of the bodies, or for helping out at all, and Daud didn’t ask; whatever the answer, it didn’t stop Corvo from touching his wrist, fingers warm as he slipped them deliberately beneath his sleeve. _Will you wait here? She needs to see me first._

“Of course,” Said Daud, with a little sting in his chest from the reminder but unsurprised. He stepped back as Corvo, at last, was reunited with his daughter.

He watched her leap into Corvo’s arms with the kind of fearlessness of the fall he’d only seen in Corvo leaping from the top of things he had no business leaping from, and that trust was rewarded because Corvo would never _let_ her fall and he swung her up, stepping into her room so he could have a private word with her. He couldn’t see what Corvo said - from where he stood Daud could only see his boot and a coattail - and whatever the little empress answered with was lost in the space and the thick-panelled walls between them.

They’d discussed it, briefly, in their bed on the barge. Daud had been entirely honest when he said he’d had enough of killing, with the openly admiring undertone that said he’d go back and take the same path as Corvo did, if he could. If Corvo willed it then Daud would leave and never return - it was least he could do - but he found that he didn’t want to, anymore. Dunwall was still a piece of shit and while he didn’t approve of the form, he could certainly appreciate the spirit of it falling to ruin. He’d gladly return to Serkonos where there, at least, he wasn’t just another dark-skinned merchant or whore. There was no love lost between he and Dunwall.

But he’d regret, he thought as Corvo pled his case for him, leaving Corvo behind to do it. They’d barely slept together and had only a few weeks of friendliness beyond that, and he certainly didn’t love the man, at least not yet; but he was interesting, and the sex was good, and maybe it wasn’t realised _yet_ but there was certainly a possibility that they could endure a good few decades together. He’d regret losing that possibility.

Emily, half-behind Corvo’s legs and looking entirely ready to run back to the safety of her cell, approached him. Cautious, understandably - Daud didn’t begrudge her that - so he crouched down and bowed his head to her on bended knee, hoping he looked as sorry as he felt. “Lady Kaldwin,” He said, as far into gentle as he could make a voice not made for gentleness go.

She shifted, clutching tightly at Corvo’s hand with both of hers. “Corvo said you had something to tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” Daud said, deciding against dragging it out in case she, like Corvo, would get bored with flowery prose. Easier for him, too; this was something that needed frankness. “For everything I did. I was stupid, and short-sighted, and wrong. I’m sorry.”

She had Corvo’s eyes, Daud thought - not her mother’s. They were too dark to be Jessamine’s brown, with the Serkonan shape and fire. There was Corvo’s cheekbones, his iron will, his relentless instinct to keep others safe. But there wasn’t the feral, hungry edge to her, always looking for the next meal in case it didn’t come, putting shiny things in her pocket because she liked the colours and not because it had any real value. The rest of her, black hair and noble face and stood there still - hidden behind Corvo, yes, but still stood - just to listen to him beg for forgiveness he didn’t rightly deserve; that was all Jessamine.

“Why?” She asked, peeking at him and looking surprised when he was just a tired old man kneeling uncomfortably on a leg that had never quite healed right. “The… Burrows, on the speakers. He said he told you to kill Mother. Why did you do it?” Daud looked to Corvo, he didn’t know why, but there was the same lack of judgement in his face as there had been the time Daud told him. He just stood placid, calm now that his daughter was returned to him.

“The whalers,” Daud told her, honest because he’d gain nothing by lying now. “Burrows knew where we stayed, and if I didn’t do what he asked he’d have told the Abbey where we were and they’d have killed everyone. I had to keep them safe, and I thought-. I thought killing your mother was a good bargain for it, at the time.” Thomas and Rulfio, padding loyally to his side despite the way the empress made a little squeak of fear and retreated entirely behind Corvo, knelt down to her with him, awkward and gangly.

They took off their masks for her, let them rest on the floor. “He’s a grumpy old bastard,” Said Rulfio, a grin pulling at the whale-oil burns covering half his face, “But he does care about us. Took me in after my dad threw me out when I was ten. Mostly 'cause he’s soft under all that gruffness, but also ‘cause I punched him.” He fluffed up his violently ginger hair, laughing to himself, “When he found out I could hit things _and_ pick locks, it was a done deal.”

Emily edged out a little, with a little wince at the sight of Rulfio’s burns and the cloudy, milk-white eye that didn’t, according to Rulfio, see much more than vague smears. Rulfio had told him, when the scars were fresh and raw, it was the reason he was left for dead; his father couldn’t afford the creams, and with his missing eye none of the warehouses would take him on. He could only really be sent on the safer hits, or as help getting into rooms and safes and the occasional chest or cabinet, but his father's loss was Daud’s gain.

“Why tell me all this now?”

“With Burrows and the Loyalists gone, you don’t have a spymaster,” Said Daud, his knee twinging painfully to remind him that the time for grovelling on hard tiles was long gone. He stood, but didn’t come close. “We want to work for you. I can’t make it right,” Daud told her, seeing the retort start to gather in her face, “But I’m sorry, and this way I can prove it. You don’t have to decide now; Samuel’s got a boat ready to take us back to base for a few days while Corvo and I sort everything out. Callista’s been asking about you.”

Mostly it had been about how long it was going to take before she was safe under Corvo’s wing again, and where would she find a space to keep up with her lessons, and some that were vaguely threatening to staple his balls to his forehead if he dared lay a hand on her. But Curnow was another friendly face in the sea of unfamiliar ones, and the one that was a little too familiar, so Daud thought it was close enough.

The little empress thought about it for a few moments, ducking behind her hair even though the trendy bob cut was too short to let her do it properly. “Alright,” She said with a decisive nod, “Alright, I’ll think about it.”


	8. Chapter 8

With a handful of Whalers on guard to make sure no harm came to them, two large nets, and a few safety wires, the scaffolding of Kingsparrow fort, creeping up the lighthouse like the ivy just starting to grow at its base, did prove to be a brilliant training ground for the new recruits. Daud watched them from his too-big office through the rain sliding off the glass; some were bold as Corvo, leaping fearlessly, where others were cautious and slow, careful to pick their path and make sure they’d follow it safely.

He was glad, at least, to see that the off duty whalers were joining in, more for the fun and challenge than any real need to train. Rulfio had set up an impromptu race and betting stand, always knowing who was the winning hound. His grin shone through the rain. Daud marvelled, too, at the slow curl of happiness just beneath his ribs, the seeping contentment that made it difficult to remember how difficult those years at the Flooded District, deeply entrenched and bristling against any outsider who stepped too close in case they were an Overseer, had been.

Daud turned his back, pretending not to have noticed Rulfio’s smug radiance - they’d stop the races if they knew he was watching, fearful of disapproval, and he found he didn’t want that when the rest of Dunwall, even with the cure putting an end to the plague, was still so bleak. This, he thought, was their home - more than the Flooded District ever was. He would let them enjoy it.

A few of his men, who’d never really been good enough for field duty but were damn good at going through obscure legal documents, waved as he passed them by, but other than a brisk greeting in return he paid them no mind. He stalked past the scattered mess of documents, maps and notices tacked up over each other, and into his room. He had a lot more free time, now, with a few scribes added to his team and with most of his people pulled back to do the paperwork for him. Without the need to be constantly on watch most of his men were blessedly bored, idly patrolling or losing stolen coin in games.  But his room was for him, and like the rest of the lighthouse it had been cleared of Burrows and Havelock’s influence. He had his books, and a double bed that wasn’t rickety and small and wasn’t outrageously enormous and insultingly expensive, and a small desk with another letter from Billie that he wasn’t sure he should open or not. It was his, completely, and what a novel thing that was after decades of having to share his space?

He put Corvo’s boots back under the bed from where one of the nosy recruits had probably knocked them askew in her search for something interesting - Akila was promising, and damn irritating with her penchant for rooting through his things even after discovering that his things didn’t move or change after four times looking through them. He despaired of ever getting her to listen though - mess hall duty was awful at the best of times with trying to wrangle them all in some semblance of order, and if she hadn’t learned after that then she was never going to.

Daud eyed the letter. Part of him wanted to read it and know she was okay without him. The bigger part, the  _ angrier _ part that still hurt and bled and wasn’t healing, told him to lock it with her other letter and never look at it again. She wasn’t his responsibility, and she’d lost the right to the affection he had for her when she turned on him and gave them up to the Overseers. He owed her nothing; not love, not time.  But, he sighed to himself, he did care for her. She was his in the way Emily was Corvo’s - he did love her, he did want her safe. He wanted to read her letter and hear her beg to come home, because he wanted Billie safe and sound. He’d known, even as he put a sword to her throat and found he just couldn’t do it, that if she called he would run to her, across any distance and against any foe, just because he was a soft-hearted old fool who’d never managed to not get attached, no matter how much he hardened his heart.

He left it there, and put on a needlessly fancy Spymaster outfit Corvo, with a deeply amused gleam in his eye, had pushed into his hands and said was very necessary for such a formal occasion. It fit, at least, but he didn’t think it was any better or worse than what he usually wore. The red was at least deep enough that it wouldn’t clash against his skin, and the trim was black thread, not gold, so he didn’t look terrible.

Daud  would next to Corvo, who got to wear a nice dark navy coat with no ridiculously ornate accents.  _ And _ Corvo had the kind of lucky breeding that meant he looked good in most kinds of colours, unlike Daud who rather felt he was being made a fool of, if unwittingly, by the empress’ entirely innocent suggestions that this coat is very nice, master Daud; would you please try it? Damn girls and their bad habit of making him not want to disappoint them. Corvo would agree with him that they were more trouble than they were worth - already Corvo had the beginnings of grey streaks coming in at his temple, and he was only young.

Unlike his usual descent, which was always the more difficult outside paths because if he didn’t take them then he’d rust, Daud took the lift. The short walk to the docks and the waiting boat was brisk and cold, with wind snapping at his hands, but he didn’t care to have hair long enough to get mussed and so the poor sod sent along to make sure the commoner could dress himself did no more than sniff and declare they were off. The journey to Dunwall Tower was equally cold, more for the company than the weather, but they made it with no incident except one of the whalers shadowing him stealing the man’s obvious wig.

He stepped off the boat and shooed the man away - he knew perfectly well how to get to the ballroom from the water lock, now that Emily had reinstated her grandfather’s policy of public gardens and he’d spent long hours with Corvo helping to secure it. And anyway, the path he was meant to take was lit up by small lanterns with candles in them, glowing warmly against the dark; he'd have to be Lady Hewitt, trotting through the hedge mazes with plaintive little cries of "Oh dear," not to know.

The decorations were quite nice, actually - Emily had good taste when it was tempered by Callista. He dreaded what she would come up with if he let her guard take off their masks and sit with her designing rooms long past her bedtime, but this was tasteful, demure, and rather sensible given most other nobles’ proclivity to spending money like water. There were statues of whales in the flowers, swimming happily through schools of fish, and floating lanterns moored so they didn’t float away. It was entirely pleasant, unlike every other birthday celebration he’d been privy to.

He passed through the large, open doors and down the hallway into the ballroom and, there; the girl of the hour dancing with Corvo who was utterly atrocious at it. “No, like this!” Said Emily, trying to tug him this way and that while Corvo laughed his awful, silent laugh at her. “You’re not even trying!” She cried.

_ I’m terrible at dancing, _ Corvo told her, obvious even over the distance Daud was crossing. He caught Daud’s eye, and his smile softened.  _ Look at Daud, we got something for you. _

The nobles all retreated fearfully from the gift Samuel had helped them find but Emily, with a little girl’s fearlessness, barely held back from rushing forward while Daud brought the monster close. “Samuel couldn’t find a dragon, your majesty,” Daud said, holding out the tiny monstrosity for her to take, “But I think she’s close enough.”

The wolfhound, stolen in one of their rare days off before the Overseers could start making it violent and unsocialised, happily settled into Emily’s arms, woofing and skinny little tail whipping from side to side so hard it's whole body wriggled. “Thank you!” Said Emily, utterly delighted by having her own monster even though it couldn’t quite breathe fire like she'd wanted. She looked up at them, “Did Samuel not want to come?” She asked, a little wobble in her voice.

Corvo put his hand on her shoulder, giving the wolfhound an affectionate pat on the head.  _ He said it’s too busy to come tonight, but he’s going to see how you like her tomorrow. She’s from him too. _ Daud gave a friendly scratch to the wolfhound too, wondering if Corvo would let him tell the story of how the dog had nearly bitten the cock off of one of the Slaters in an ill-advised protest of Daud’s softer measures against the plague victims still shuffling through the streets. Slater himself was edging away, looking like he very much wished he’d taken his physician’s advice and stayed home.

“Oh,” Said Emily, brightening a bit. Then she shoved Corvo at Daud, “You dance with him, he’s terrible.”

“I can’t dance; never learned,” Daud told her cheerfully. He looked at one of the noblewomen who very much seemed to want to take Corvo’s arm and drag him into a small, cramped cupboard. “I’m sure someone else is willing.”

Emily was undeterred. “Be terrible together,” She said seriously, and stalked off to find Callista, saying, “I’m going to show her Monster!”

_ The Empress has spoken, _ Said Corvo, taking his hand and tugging not towards the floor where a few couples were still spinning, but towards one of the empty smoking rooms.  _ She’ll be distracted for hours with her, _ He added, flashing a grin over his shoulder as he locked the door behind them. Well well, a rebellious streak from Corvo.

“Didn’t think you’d want to leave her alone,” Daud said mildly, taking up a glass of whiskey before Corvo could get a look in. Good, expensive swill that had probably been aged several hundred years more because someone had forgotten about it than any real will behind it. It burned down his throat in a long, cauterising line; just the way he preferred.

Corvo gave him a kiss, more affection than desire, and probably more stealing the taste of the whiskey than that.  _ Not alone, _ He said.  _ Thomas. _

“He’s not a bad dancer,” Daud agreed, but he knew that wasn’t really what Corvo was saying.

What he meant, what they  _ both _ meant, was that Emily wasn’t going to be left unsupported ever again. She was going to have people who cared about her to protect her, and people who loved her to advise her, and they would let her be young for as long as they could in a city that had robbed them both of youth far too early. What spoke most to Daud, though, was that Corvo trusted him and his men to keep Emily safe, and that was as much a gift as Corvo warm and languid against his side as they lounged on the plush rug in front of the fire, listening and laughing as Callista howled in horror at what Corvo and Daud and Samuel thought was an appropriate birthday present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that, the last of Crow. Don't have any plans to continue on into the sequels, because I haven't played them yet and I'm going to wait for them to be cheaper. But, not a hardline stance and I don't know; might have another one in the works in a year or so when I get some free time, burnable money, and new ideas. Either way, complete! Hooray, didn't think I'd ever do it!


End file.
